Sunday Lunch with David Manilow
"I look at 'Check, Please!' as being authentic and diverse," says David Manilow, creator of the popular restaurant review show. "And the thing I'm really proud of is that people are exploring the city because of the show."
We're sitting at a sidewalk table on the corner of 16th Street and 61st Avenue in Cicero, and Manilow, trim and handsome in a sport coat and dress slacks, cheerfully allows that "without the show, I'd never know about a place like this."
The place is Freddy's Pizza, a bustling neighborhood Italian grocery, pizza place and gelateria that, since winning rave reviews on the show, which airs on WTTW-Channel 11, two years ago, has drawn customers from all over the city and suburbs. Manilow gets a hero's welcome here, due only in part to the fact that his show has brought loads of new business to Freddy's. Almost everyone who stops by more than a few times gets a similarly warm greeting, full of how's-the-family banter.
Manilow doesn't have to place an order here. We just claim our table -- a fancy plastic setup that's been molded to look like wood, which he swears has been ordered especially for our lunch -- and, within a few minutes, food is arriving. There's calamari, arrancini (rice balls stuffed with meat), fried artichokes, roasted peppers, an antipasti plate and fresh-baked bread. Just for starters.
Eventually, we'll pull over a second table for the pasta, risotto and pizza.
'Why isn't there a show about this?'
But, meanwhile, we soak in the sunshine and the almost-ambience punctuated by the sounds of passing garbage trucks and road crews.
Manilow, who grew up on the North Side, near Broadway and Wellington, says he has always used restaurants as a way to explore the city, from family outings to Ziggy's on Clark Street to ventures into ethnic neighborhoods. A career in television -- he was Tim Weigel's producer at Channel 7 -- eventually led him to launching a production company with friends in 2000.
But their early work centered more on producing corporate videos than on trying to come up with ideas for hit TV shows. Then Manilow, who'd been married and living in the suburbs, raising three kids, found himself once again single and living in the city. He rediscovered his youthful passion for checking out restaurants of every possible variety and, very soon, started to wonder, "Why isn't there a show about this?"
"This show, honestly," he says, "was one of those things that you think about one morning in the shower, and 48 hours later, you have the whole thing: the name and everything."
'It was fantastic'
The idea, which has been replicated in San Francisco and will soon launch in Los Angeles, was to bring together diverse, authentic "real people" reviewers -- "people who I don't think you would ever see sitting down at a table together" -- to introduce each other to their favorite restaurants, "three restaurants that pretty much no one would ever have been to all three of them."
Since its premiere, more than 30,000 people have applied, via WTTW's Web site, to appear on the show, and Manilow and his staff have an elaborate screening and scheduling process that ensures lively conversation and diverse perspectives. (Though the wine, served to reviewers as their conversation is filmed, also tends to help things along, Manilow adds.)
In the beginning, though, there was the challenge of filming several episodes without any mechanism for recruiting reviewers.
"We were getting friends-of-friends-of-friends," Manilow says, adding that he also recruited a few telegenic strangers, like a magician whose performance he went to see.
"On the first show," he recalls, "we had a picture framer, who was pierced and tattooed all over, and a suburban homemaker/artist and a very, very snobbish doctor. The restaurants were Earwax Cafe, Sushi Kushi Toyo, in a suburban strip mall, and Blackbird. You can pretty easily figure out who picked what. Well, on the air, the doctor said he was so glad to have found this sushi place, which he would have never been to in a million years. Then they argued over Earwax [the hip Wicker Park cafe selected by the framer], and the [picture framer] said he wasn't comfortable at Blackbird. It was fantastic."
'I have a great time'
A hit right away, the show is now the most-watched of all WTTW's local programming and, in addition to its San Francisco and Los Angeles incarnations, might also launch in the Washington, D.C., and Seattle areas. Manilow is so thrilled that he seems almost unable to believe his good fortune.
"Are you from that show, 'Check, Please!'?" asks a woman seated at a nearby table, noticing the photographer snapping away as Manilow holds court.
He laughs joyously at the question. ("Check, Please!" reviewers are not accompanied by cameras when they dine out. In fact, the show only films the restaurants after the reviewers' conversation has already been recorded.)
"I'm totally thrilled when that happens," he says, wiping the corner of his eye in a self-mocking sentimental gesture. "I mean, really, how great is this? I have a great time; I meet great people."
He samples from every plate in front of us, crediting the "genetics diet" for his slim frame, clearly relishing the food and, even more, the incredible friendliness of this busy corner.
Manilow, who does not consider himself a foodie -- "What's a foodie, really?" he asks. "Someone who only eats the best of everything? There's greatness in a cheeseburger, as far as I'm concerned." -- has early memories of just finishing one of his mother's home-cooked meals and then opening up the refrigerator, just for the comfort of seeing what might be served the next day.
"But the thing about Chicagoans," says Manilow, who lives in Lake View, a few blocks away from the apartment where he grew up and his mother still lives, "is that, when they talk about a meal, they don't talk about the food first. It's about the feeling, about the people."
