He had no idea who he was preparing meals for that night at The Westin Poinsett.
“It was like, super-secretive, whatever was going on,” chef Michael Sibert recalls of the unusual evening at the downtown Greenville hotel in 2013 while he was still enrolled at Greenville Tech’s culinary school.
Something big was cooking, that much he knew. The hotel’s general manager was in the kitchen and the chef was hovering over everything he made as were the Secret Service men, who eyed his every move.
“It was a little weird,” he says. He learned later the guest of honor’s identity: President Barack Obama.
In mid-November, the 30-year-old Greenwood native and his wife of 14 months, Sam Aupied, plan to open White Wine & Butter, their first restaurant. The eatery will take its place among five other vendors operating in Cartwright Food Hall in Greer.
Aupied, whose Cajun surname is pronounced OH-pea-aid, brings to the table her deep roots in New Orleans, where she says her stepfather worked for decades at Clancy’s, the storied 1940s restaurant famed for its Creole cuisine.
That — with a twist — is what you’ll find at White Wine & Butter, a chef-centered operation featuring Sibert, along with two longtime colleagues he refers to as brothers: chefs Troy Arnold and Savalas Barnes. Their combined experience exceeds three decades, Aupied says.
Pasta, of all things, takes center stage at the restaurant named for Sibert’s favorite sauce, a béchamel. One of WW&B’s signature dishes, along with Voodoo Fries, will be PastaLaya, a dish that shows Sibert’s noodling around with jambalaya, the Louisiana rice-shrimp-sausage staple.
Aupied describes their planned menu of fewer than 15 dishes as a mashup of NOLA fine dining and an authentic (read: casual, family-style) Italian trattoria — another nod to her hometown’s mystical culinary stew.
Much of their inspiration, she says, comes from a 150-year-old recipe book passed down to her.
“We’re taking traditional flavor profiles that are hundreds of years old from my great-grandmother and applying them into new dishes that are, literally, going to blow peoples’ minds,” says Aupied, 29, Chief Brand Officer.
With COVID-19 forcing delays, Aupied insisted they spend a month in the Crescent City. In March, Sibert apprenticed in such kitchens as Clancy’s, Langlois and “grandmas’ homes,” to learn the secret sauce in Cajun-Creole cuisine, she says.
Says Sibert, “I was, like, I can make jambalaya, yeah, I can make gumbo, and I actually tried to make it for a true Cajun, and I got my feelings hurt. I was completely oblivious to the different flavor profiles of New Orleans. I got humbled.”
To date, Sibert has shown off his chops at such venues as euphoria, Greer’s Dine on Trade, a VIP tent at Fall for Greenville and as a chef at Holly Tree Country Club, among others.
Chefs typically dream of opening their own restaurant, both say — and their opportunity came when one of Cartwright’s owners approached them.
“They’re really fascinating people,” says Elaine Kang, the food hall’s co-manager. “He is such an amazing chef.”
White Wine & Butter will operate from a 300-square-foot kitchen in the 215 Trade St. food hall, which occupies a street front building and connected carriage house built in 1904.
“They were just thrilled at the idea that you don’t have to put near as much down as you would your own restaurant,” Kang says.
Aupied, who, until recently, owned a hairstyling business, says they’re opening with substantially less debt than most.
That’s thanks, in part, to the business they started three years ago under the same name: a luxury catering company. Their high-end clients, who sign nondisclosure agreements, pay upwards of $200 per person for Sibert and his crew to prepare and serve five-course meals in customers’ homes.
Their custom catering operation will continue, they say, along with their new venture, which Aupied says is perhaps the Greenville area’s only restaurant owned and operated by a minority chef.
“We’ll showcase our artists, our chefs, and really focus on education and furthering our reach,” she says. “We’re just two young American kids trying to live that dream.”
White Wine & Butter joins a handful of other vendors at Cartwright Food Hall in Greer’s historic Greer Station district. Those include:
