When Fred Sirieix was 14 years old, he visited the UK for the first time. The 52-year-old Frenchman, best known as the charming maitre d’ on Channel 4’s First Dates, was on a school exchange. He left his home city of Limoges in Southwest France and spent two weeks in Stratford-upon-Avon where he attended a local secondary school. ‘I had one thing in mind – to kiss girls,’ he says, speaking on the phone from Paris, where he is on a work trip.
Fred with daughter Andrea after her medal win at the Paris Olympics
Sirieix was, he is pleased to report, successful, managing to kiss ten of them. One was called Belinda. ‘She had blonde hair and blue eyes. And I did this kind of falling in love with her.’ When he returned home, his mother bought him and his brother pet guinea pigs. He named his Belinda.
Six years later, aged 20, Sirieix bought a one-way ferry ticket to Dover. He moved to London, rented a £50-a-week bedsit in Pimlico and got a job as a waiter at the two-Michelin-starred restaurant La Tante Claire in Chelsea. Thirty-two years on, he’s still in the UK, having left the capital and moved to Kent, where he lives with his partner, whose name remains a secret but who he calls Fruitcake. (Sirieix has two children with his ex-partner Alex Spendolini: Lucien, 15, and Andrea, 19, who won a bronze medal for Team GB at the Paris Olympics in the 10m synchronised diving.)
Three decades is a long time to observe the British psyche, and this week Sirieix publishes his book, Seriously British. It’s partly a love letter to the UK, partly a Frenchman’s thoughts on British life. ‘It’s strange to say, but I have been writing it in my head ever since the first day I arrived.’
These are some of his musings:
On bank holidays
After moving to London, Sirieix quickly came to understand the sanctity of a British bank holiday. He spent his first with a friend he had met in Pimlico called Paul, whose parents had a beach house in Margate. It was early May, sunny and, in the spirit of all good long weekends, ‘Basically, we got drunk for three days. It was one of those great weekends. When I look back, it’s like I can see it through a kaleidoscope. I remember the warm feeling of it all: collecting mussels on the beach, having midnight chats, dancing with locals to Abba, drinking vodka shots. It was brilliant.’
On sex and love
According to Sirieix: ‘The French think that Brits don’t like sex and that they don’t think about sex, but it’s not true! They think about it a lot, it’s just if you mention the word sex they get red.’ Sirieix is an authority on this: ‘I have worked in the First Dates restaurant for ten years.’ Of course, he says, there are some romantic differences. In the UK, if someone has an affair it’s almost always scandalous. ‘In France, if somebody is having an affair [and you tell someone about it] the next thing that person will say is: “OK… did you buy the bread for lunch?”’ Also, there’s some discrepancy in what constitutes a romantic gesture. Once, on Valentine’s Day, Sirieix was travelling so Fruitcake tucked a letter inside his suitcase; he gave her a small Greek statue of a man wearing a pair of red Speedos.
On the countryside
Sirieix says he understands why the Vikings invaded Britain. ‘When they saw these shores they must have thought, “Wow, this is unbelievable, man. This is going to be nice. It’s green, it’s lush, look at those rolling hills!” They knew beauty when they saw it and that’s why they did what they did. I mean, don’t ask me whether they were right or wrong!’ He thinks that Britain’s dramatic landscapes – the Highlands, the Lake District – often go unsung. He suspects it’s down to a national tendency towards understatement. ‘You Brits don’t like to shout about anything too much.’ Nature included.
On attitudes
Since moving to the UK, Sirieix has worked front of house in many restaurants. The British customer, he says, has a distinct quality: ‘The way they communicate. The understatement. The way they don’t like to make anybody embarrassed. The way they won’t say what food they don’t like. If you had a restaurant with two tables – one with French people at it and one with English – and you gave them the same bread, if the French group are not happy with their bread, they are going to complain. The Brits…’ he trails off. ‘Nothing. And then you [the waiter] say: “Is everything all right?” And they say: “Yes, yes, I’m fine.” They’re British! They don’t make a fuss.’ In summary, Siriex says: ‘The French love to complain, the British love to apologise.’
Seriously British by Fred Sirieix will be published on 12 September by Bloomsbury, £20. To order a copy for £17 until 22 September, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Free UK delivery on orders over £25.
