FRED Sirieix is considered a real-life Cupid thanks to his role as maître d’ and matchmaker on Channel 4’s First Dates and First Dates Hotel. The suave Frenchman is back on our screens and making us hungry in his new BBC show Remarkable Places to Eat at Christmas. Who is Fred Sirieix? French-born Fred is […]
FRED Sirieix is considered a real-life Cupid thanks to his role as maître d’ and matchmaker on Channel 4’s First Dates and First Dates Hotel.
The suave Frenchman is back on our screens and making us hungry in his new BBC show Remarkable Places to Eat at Christmas.
French-born Fred is best known as the loveable maître d’ on the hit Channel 4 show First Dates.
He is also the face of First Dates Hotel.
The 48-year-old was born and brought up in Limoges in western France and knew from an early age that he wanted to work in the hospitality industry.
He attended catering college and initially trained as a chef but decided to focus on being front of house instead.
Fred trained as a maître d’ in France before moving to London.
Fred then worked at La Tante Claire in Chelsea and also spent time at Le Gavroche in Mayfair, Satario and Brasserie Roux.
As well as appearing in First Dates, he is the general manager at Galvin at Windows – a Michelin-starred French haute cuisine restaurant located on the 28th floor of the London Hilton on Park Lane.
Fred also hosts BBC’s Million Pound Menu, which sees contestants competing to win an investment.
In April 2020, Fred hosted The Restaurant That Burns Calories which sparked controversy among viewers.
Despite being very private about his love life, Fred did open up about questions concerning whether he is in a committed relationship or not.
In July 2016, the French native revealed he had never been married before, adding that the closest thing to marriage had been his 12-year-old relationship with the mother of his two children, who is simply known as Alex to the public.
In January 2018, Alex took to his social media account to reveal he was in a new relationship with a woman he had nicknamed Fruitcake.
The couple got engaged in March 2020.
Fred saw his profile rise after first appearing on First Dates in 2013 during the first series.
On the show, Fred greets the nervous daters as they turn up at the First Dates restaurant for a blind date.
He is often seen showing singletons to the bar and to their tables and even offers his pearls of wisdom to some of those who are unlucky in love.
Since then, the Bafta-winning show – which is filmed in London’s Paternoster Chop House – has had a huge boost in both popularly and ratings.
But it wasn’t the first time that Fred has graced our screens.
He co-hosted BBC2 show Michel Roux’s Service and in 2012, he appeared on an episode of The Apprentice on BBC1.
And he has even dabbled in music and once made a dance track called La Vie Continue (Life Goes On) – a song about “love, loss and everything in between”.
Fred went on a road trip with famous TV chefs Gordon Ramsay and Gino D’Campo in 2020.
The ITV series saw the trio travel around the highways of Mexico and the USA, visiting Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas and Tijuana.
While in lockdown, Sirieix reprised his role as cupid when he hosted Hitched at Home.
During the show, Fred worked around the clock to set up the perfect wedding for a couple who’s wedding was cancelled due to the lockdown.
