On paper, Alpana Singh can be a very intimidating character.
At 21, she was the youngest American ever to pass the rigorous advanced sommelier exam, an internationally recognized credential of wine knowledge. Earlier this year, she became one of only 11 female master sommeliers in the nation. And today she presides over a 1,400-bottle wine cellar of Everest, one of the nation’s top restaurants.
But who is the California girl who shows up for lunch toting a backpack and who seems to melt into a fit of giggles every five minutes?
It’s Alpana Singh in the flesh, a warm, friendly and engaging 26-year-old woman who displays no snootiness about her wine expertise, or about anything else.
She is digging into a plate of scrambled eggs, country ham, grits and a biscuit at Sweet Maple Cafe on West Taylor Street during what she reported was her third research trip for the show. “I love going out and visiting these places in the neighborhoods,” she says. “It gets me out of my tiny little area [in the South Loop] I know as Chicago, and I think that is the best part for me and the viewers.”
Singh’s unaffected enjoyment of restaurants, food and wine and her rapport with people led David Manilow, creator of public television station WTTW’s Everyman restaurant review show, “Check, Please,” to hire her as the program’s host for its third season.
“She is very smart and knowledgeable and not intimidating, as you might think from her level of achievement,” he says of Singh, who will make her Channel 11 hosting debut Oct. 17, replacing Amanda Puck. “Her on-camera presence is so good and natural. And as much as she likes to be serious, she can also be a real goofball too.”
The goofballishness comes out in conversation about watching TV (“I was addicted to `The Anna Nicole Show'”), recent movies (“I am a huge `Mr. Bean’ fan. Huge.”) and recent concerts (in an impromptu parody of Cher, she sings “Do you belieeeeve in yet another farewell tour?”).
But as the daughter of working-class Indians who came to the States from Fiji, Singh also is exceptionally driven. After eight years of intense wine studying and sampling, as well as practical work, she finally passed the notoriously difficult master sommelier exam (a test with a three percent pass rate requiring vast book knowledge and a finely tuned palate) in March. What followed was a void that left her with unexpected bouts of crying and depression that she later discovered were common post-exam maladies, curable only by pouring herself into a new challenge.
“I was at a master sommelier summit this summer, and my friend said, `So have the crying fits started yet?'” she recalls. “And here I thought it was only me.”
In July that challenge came from Manilow, who reached Singh at a food and wine festival in Hawaii to ask if she would like to audition for “Check, Please.”
3 Chicagoans, 3 restaurants
The show features three regular Chicagoans and a host who sit around a table dishing on their experiences at three restaurants. The host serves as moderator, referee and narrator for segments with footage from the dining spot.
The show was building an audience during its two seasons on the air, but the cash-strapped station was ready to cancel it unless “Check, Please” found underwriting to cover its costs. It was saved at the last minute when WTTW board member James R. Donnelley, a fan of the show, maneuvered to get some Donnelley Foundation money behind it.
“It is harder these days to find an underwriter for a whole show, but everybody wants to be near this show because it has had such a response with theviewers,” said V.J. McAleer, senior vice president of production at WTTW. “We have support from the Donnelley family fund . . . but they are still working on finding a funder for it. But there is a lot of corporate and business interest. They want to run their spots around the show.”
Original host and Spago manager Amanda Puck left the show 10 days before shooting was to begin on the new season. She told Manilow her departure was for “personal reasons.”
“I loved doing the show, and it was a great experience and we have an Emmy to prove it. But I have a lot going on with my job and other stuff that it just wasn’t fitting in,” Puck says. “I am just really busy with a lot of projects here [at Spago] and special events.”
Her decision meant Manilow had to rethink his shooting schedule and find a new host. “The host we were looking for was youngish, probably female and with some credentials or at the very least some real restaurant and food knowledge,” he says, and he wanted to avoid a huge casting call. “I didn’t know Alpana, but I read about her in [a] Crain’s article. I told her we would talk when she came back from Hawaii. In the meantime, I auditioned like 50 people, from cooking school instructors and waitresses and chefs to friends of friends. I didn’t put it out there much. I was trying to keep it under the radar.”
In the end, Singh’s comfort in front of the camera and food and wine credentials made her the clear choice.
“If you would have told me at 21 that I would end up being a master sommelier, living in Chicago and working in one of the best restaurants in the country I would be like, `Oh, right,'” she says. “I didn’t believe that any of this would ever be possible. I was thinking about that this morning. I grew up watching Julia Child and `Great Chefs of America,’ and I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be on a show on PBS.”
Indeed, even though Singh started working in restaurants (a Baker’s Square, to start) at age 15, by the time she was 18, she had no idea what she wanted to study (“my interests were sooo broad”). So after joining and being medically disqualified for the Air Force before boot camp, she enrolled in community college and got a job at a fine-dining restaurant in her hometown of Monterrey, Calif. She found the wine-training program at the restaurant much more interesting than her college classes.
“I became completely engrossed in the study of wine because it was so fascinating. It wasn’t the alcohol part of it, but the story of it,” she remembers. “So I just found myself getting books and reading and studying and coming back to the wine classes and asking questions.”
Singh’s boss (who would also become a master sommelier) noted her enthusiasm and encouraged her to get involved with the nation’s premiere wine-training program to get her accreditation as a master sommelier.
“So I thought this could be it,” she says. “Society says you have to have a four-year degree, but I thought maybe I don’t need one. This could be my education. So I started working at a retail store and focused my effort on studying for the exam full-time.”
Her parents were not pleased.
“I describe my life like `Bend It Like Beckham,'” says Singh, whose foray into television will place her in the tiny sorority of South Asian women in the media.
“I am so glad that movie [in which an Indian girl decides to defy her parents to pursue her soccer dreams] came out, because I can say that now. My parents were appalled. They wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer. The whole reason they moved from Fiji to the States [where she and her brother were born] is so my brother and I could have a better life. They thought about it [studying wine] as kind of a phase. But then when I passed the advanced, they were like, `OK, this is serious.'”
But even after Singh passed the advanced exam, the second step in the three-step master sommelier program, she couldn’t find a job as a sommelier. At age 23, still working in wine retail, she attended the Masters of Food and Wine summit in Carmel, Calif., and made an acquaintance that would change her life.
A chance meeting
While wandering around the convention one night, she spotted Claudine Pepin (TV hostess and daughter of noted chef Jacques Pepin) and introduced herself. Pepin encouraged her to introduce herself at a table of white coats that included chefs Jean Louis Palladin, Jacques Pepin and Jean Joho of Everest.
Singh immediately started with a big faux pas, complimenting Palladin on his lovely daughter who turned out to be his girlfriend. Palladin was furious. Fast on her feet, Singh recovered with, “Your girlfriend? Then chef Palladin, your foie gras must be reaaallly good.”
Palladin was still affronted, but Joho liked her sense of humor and asked her to sit down. He heard her story and asked her to interview for a job the next day.
“A month later, I beelined it to Chicago,” she remembers.
Three years later, Singh has been the subject of several local and national media pieces. With this new television gig, in addition to her duties at Everest, her profile can only rise.
“I think it is an honor, it’s wonderful,” says chef Joho of his protege/employee. “She is one of the top sommeliers in the country, and she knows a lot about food and service and the hospitality business, and she is very outspoken. It’s good because the shows are taped on Monday when the restaurant is closed. And this way she has something to do on her day off with all of that energy. I am very proud of her.”
Despite the new host’s abilities, wine will not dominate the “Check, Please” discussion, nor will Singh choose the labels served to guests during tapings.
“We haven’t had to carry anybody off the set,” Manilow says, “but you will notice that people are a lot more relaxed in the second and third segments.”
And while Singh may be comfortable in front of the camera, one of the host’s main challenges is chatting with the guests and getting them to feel comfortable, too — a skill Singh says is already is part of her day job.
“I walk up to a table and I am like, `Hi, how am I going to get you to feel comfortable about spending money on a bottle of wine?'” she says.
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Tips on being a guest
Love or hate the “Check, Please” concept of amateurs reviewing local restaurants, you can’t deny the program’s loyal following.
The show, which features three regular folks comparing their experiences at three restaurants, has a “very good” cumulative average rating of 5.0 for the three times it airs each week, according to V.J. McAleer, senior vice president of production at WTTW-Ch. 11 (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). Each rating point represents about 31,000 households.
Producer David Manilow has a database of 5,000 people who have applied through the Internet (www.checkplease.tv) to be guests.
He sifts through thousands of applications, sorting them based on their restaurant suggestion as well as by geographical, ethnic and economic diversity. He follows up on promising applications with a phone interview to assess applicants’ verbal abilities and level of enthusiasm. Then he makes his final decision on what combinations of people and restaurants will make for good TV.
If chosen, a guest is given the names of the other two restaurants and a lump-sum stipend to offset the cost of the meals.
The restaurants are notified they will be featured, but the visitors dine anonymously. Scenes are usually shot in the restaurant after the discussion segment has been taped.
Tapings take place twice a month, and applicants for the new season are still being screened. To help improve your chances to be picked for the show, here are tips gleaned from a conversation with Manilow:
– Pick a hidden treasure of a restaurant, preferably something in an obscure neighborhood or suburb.
– If you don’t have a hidden treasure, choose a restaurant that has what Manilow calls “lots of layers,” in other words lots to talk about in addition to food.
– Be animated and enthusiastic about why you love it. No two-word answers.
– Assure Manilow that you will be honest on the show even if you hate a restaurant.
– Your chances go up dramatically if you have a great personality and a really interesting job.
– Try to come off as someone to whom the average viewer can relate.
– Watch the show a lot so you can get a feel for the kinds of restaurants they do and do not feature.
– Make sure to look at the list of restaurants (listed on the Web site) so you don’t repeat something that has already aired.
In its new season starting next month, “Check, Please” will air at 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 p.m. Saturdays, 11 p.m. Sundays and 10:30 p.m. Mondays.
— Monica Eng
