Movies and TV shows about the inner workings of the culinary world have made us peek inside restaurant kitchens before. But FX’s new “The Bear” is the first to force you to work in one.
As the series (streaming on Hulu) kicks off, young chef Carmen Berzatto has left behind a huge career, brimming with awards such as the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star, at an unnamed high-end New York restaurant (played by Eleven Madison Park† He has come home to Chicago to run the Italian beef sandwich shop after his brother Mikey died by suicide, leaving behind a $300,000 debt, but no note. The monumental task of keeping Original Beef of Chicagoland afloat while trying to mourn his brother, keep his employees and make good food is to eat him alive – and the show makes you feel like you’re standing next to it.
To review: Chicago’s Italian beef is one of America’s Great Sandwiches, with its thinly sliced roast beef, spicy giardiniera and roasted peppers piled on a submarine roll, then drizzled with or dipped in beef juice. It’s wrapped in paper and eaten in what the locals “Italian beef attitude– feet planted wide, elbows on the counter, butt sticking out to escape the inevitable pickles and gravy drips.
Instead of overseeing trained chefs plucking herbs and zest yuzus, Carmen now spins a hamster wheel of tasks: slicing carrots, breaking out fights and peddling his vintage denim collection to buy meat. (The tight shots and jumpcuts of the camera and the loud drone of the audio make you feel like you’re in the room.) Instead of reverent interns, he inherits a spiky crew, loyal to his brother’s memory and his spaghetti recipe, plus an irate, grieving manager (and childhood friend) who taunts him by calling him “Bobby Flay” — and much, much worse.
As chefs have transitioned from invisible workers to celebrity artisans and influencers, many attempts have been made to make them stars on the screen. Movies like “chef” (2014), “burnt” (2015) and “Pig(2021) did it with varying degrees of success, portraying chefs as deep-seated, tormented geniuses. On television, real-life chefs such as Missy Robbins, Wylie Dufresne and Alex Guarnaschelli are often featured in “Billions”, and global stars such as Alex Atala and Dominique Crenn are profiled in adorable series such as “The Mind of a Chef” and “Chef’s Table.” . †
But despite all the media representing the restaurant world, “its track record for authenticity isn’t great,” said Christopher Storer, co-showrunner of “The Bear,” which produced multiple documentaries about the culinary world before turning to fiction with Eighth Grade and Ramy.
His friend, Canadian chef Matty Matheson, who produced and advised the series and eventually had a small part, said he wanted an accurate, gruesome portrayal of what he calls “this great, beautiful shitty industry.”
Some of the accuracy of the series comes from shooting it in a real kitchen. One of the best friends of Mr. Childhood storer, Christopher Zucchero, is an Italian beef king; his father and uncle opened Mr Beef on North Orleans Street in 1978, and he is now an owner. Most scenes in Original Beef of Chicagoland are shot in the kitchen: a typical jumble of small rooms, functional but dingy and full of dangers: tight corners, sharp knives, high shelves and hot pans.
The most authentic feature is also the first thing Carmen sees when he wakes up with a start: the clock, the absolute ruler of every kitchen. As fast as it works, it can’t change how long it takes to caramelize onions or let bread dough rise. Likewise, he can’t replace 30 gallons of stock that took days to make when a container spills into the walk-in. The countdown to opening time is unrelenting.
“The stress is real, whether it’s fine dining or Italian beef,” says Courtney Storer, Mr. Storer’s sister, who made her way through high school at restaurants in Chicago, where they were born and raised.
She went to culinary school and later spent eight years cooking in Los Angeles’ acclaimed restaurants three boys and Animaland also consulted on the series.
The Storers said the show’s themes of family, addiction, obsession and recovery draw on both their own histories and their intimate knowledge of life in professional kitchens, both high-end and low-end.
The actors have worked unusually hard to study the culinary elite from which Carmen has returned. Jeremy Allen White, who plays Carmen, and Ayo Edebiri, the intern sous chef who is the only other character in Carmen’s world, both received basic training at the Institute of Culinary Education in Los Angeles. mr. White went to work at… pasjolicthe Malibu restaurant headed by Dave BeranGrant Achatz’s old lieutenant at Paragraph in Chicago.
Lionel Boyce, who plays the bread baker, went to Copenhagen to study Richard Hartthe British sourdough whisperer who helped build Toast in San Francisco before René Redzepi recruited him to make bread Or in 2017. (Noma’s cookbooks are the only ones we see in use in the kitchen, although it’s possible to get a set of “Modernist cuisine,” and there’s a copy of Julia Child’s”Mastering the art of French cooking” in a corner of the office.)
But on screen, the kitchen crew resists Carmen’s upgrades: There’s fennel in the giardiniera, the beef is braised instead of roasted, and even the buns have been tweaked for elasticity. (It takes a lot of gluten to withstand the juices of a good beef sandwich.).
What he’s really trying to do is harder than changing recipes: he’s rebuilding two dysfunctional families in mourning — his own and the restaurant’s.
Carmy’s sister is married, lives a civilian life in the suburbs and wants nothing to do with the beef trade; she can’t even stand the smell of the place. He can’t talk to her about his grief, but going to Al-Anon meetings (Mikey was addicted to opioids) is a love language she understands.
To refurbish the kitchen, he catches up with the practices of an (idealized) fine-dining restaurant. By having the chefs call each other ‘chefs’, he ensures mutual respect, a clear chain of command and opens doors to new skills. (With some chaos along the way, thanks to a new digital takeout ordering system.)
“You see the change progressing throughout the series,” Ms. Storer said. “Everything about the cooks changes: the way they wear a towel, hold a spoon, wear an apron.”
Of course, this being fiction, the chef successfully transforms his ragtag crew into a tight-knit band: a literal brigade, once a traditional French culinary hierarchy is established.
But unlike a lot of on-screen travel, because of the show’s balance of bitter and sweet, this one doesn’t feel tacky.
The only time I thought I saw a culinary off-note was in the fourth episode. Mashed potatoes hit the menu, and Tina, the sweet-natured, sharp-tongued vegetable cook, has just taken a baking sheet of whole potatoes out of the oven. She struggles to peel them while they’re still hot, then pat them by hand. The whole operation seems hugely impractical for a professional kitchen, where they would be boiled or steamed.
“Yeah, that’s a crazy way to make mashed potatoes,” confirmed Mr. Matheson. He said he pulled that episode out of his own life while working at the classic Toronto bistro The selection† Out of tradition and stubbornness, the then old-school French chef insisted.
“Sometimes chefs make you do things for no reason,” he said. “Learning to absorb that is part of the job.”