SC chef to compete on Guy Fieri Food Network show soon. Here’s when to watch

Michael Sibert and his wife Samantha Aupied own two restaurants in Greer and a catering company. He has worked as a private chef all over the United States and once made the salad course — Hearts of Palm — for President Barack Obama while he made a stop in Greenville.

An episode Sibert filmed a year ago for “Guy’s Grocery Games” airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday on Food Network.

And oh, he and his wife welcomed their first child, Bleu, on Monday.

It’s been a wild ride since the 32-year-old was a student at the Culinary Institute of the Carolinas at Greenville Technical College and in the continuing education program for food and beverage at Cornell University.

Even wilder for a kid who grew up in Greenwood, prepared meals for his working mom and watched as his grandmother baked and grandfather smoked meat. They were both known for their cooking acumen.

Cooking was always in his future, but not necessarily in a restaurant.

“Early on, I never had ambition to own a restaurant,” Sibert said.

He had worked in a number of restaurants and country clubs in the Upstate and just naturally gravitated to become a private chef, preparing meals for dinner parties and families and catering weddings and other events.

Sibert liked building relationships with the people he cooked for. He asked only if they had allergies.

“Don’t tell me what you don’t like,” he told his customers. Cooking the same exact meal over and over is not his favorite thing.

While restaurants were suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sibert and Aupied did well. Restaurants closed for a time and people were hesitant to go out after they reopened. But a chef who comes to your house? And prepares a five-course meal? Of course.

Sibert said the business grew as a party of four morphed into eight and 20. Word spread.

Sibert and Aupied met through the dating app Hinge. They talked online for a bit and then when it came time to meet, he drove to Denver, North Carolina, north of Charlotte, sharing his location the whole way with his friends, just in case.

Apied was working as a hairdresser then. She has since become the chief branding officer for their business.

They met at a park and then went for sushi. Nine months later they eloped and got married on the beach at Myrtle Beach.

Apied, who is from Louisiana, is no stranger to the restaurant business. Her stepfather worked at Clancy’s, the restaurant founded in the late 1940s as a place to get Po’Boys that now is an upscale eatery with a long wine list and big reputation for Creole cooking.

She gave her husband her great-grandfather’s 150-year-old recipe book as a wedding president.

In June 2021, the owner of a soon-to-be-developed food hall in downtown Greer contacted them. Would they like to have a restaurant there?

When they walked in it was a dirt floor, empty two-story storefront with a carriage house in back.

What would be their concept if they were interested?

“I had five minutes to come up with something,” Sibert said.

“Cajun and fresh pasta.”

That idea became White Wine & Butter.

The couple still have the catering and private chef businesses, own a venue for events and recently opened a burger restaurant, also in Cartwright Food Hall in Greer.

Sibert said he was contacted to take part in “Guy’s Grocery Games,” also known as Triple G. After interviews and all that comes with being chosen for a Food Network show, he flew to California last July for the taping. Host Guy Fieri has a production studio and full grocery in Santa Rosa, his hometown.

Sibert had to get a couple to move their wedding date so he could go. It says something about his catering ability that they said they would.

Sibert and Apied, of course, cannot say whether he won, but the experience must have been good overall because he has a desire for more.

He’d especially like to be on Hell’s Kitchen, hosted by explosive chef Gordon Ramsay.

Having his own show is not out of the question for him.

Triple G, he said, will help him develop his own brand, which in turn will help him help others. He’d like to do book bag giveaways and other events to show kids who look like him there’s a place for them as owners and chefs in the food and beverage industry.