Unlike most cooking media, FX’s The Bear does not glamorize being a chef but instead serves as a warning to those wishing to partake in the culinary world. As a result, it realistically portrays the chaos of running a kitchen and the unique mental toll of being a chef.
Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is a prodigious fine-dining chef from the world’s best restaurant struggling with deep-seated trauma. Carmy returns to his hometown of Chicago to manage his late brother Michael “Mikey” Berzatto’s failing sandwich shop. Along with the “Original Beef of Chicagoland,” Carmy inherits its unruly staff, rundown kitchen, and unpaid debts.
Attention to Realism
21 Emmys, 4 Golden Globes, an 8.6/10 IMDB rating, and a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score imply that nonprofessionals at least resonate with The Bear‘s themes. But does the show measure up to the reality of being a chef?
Kitchen
The depressing facts about Beef are the most true to life. Kitchens are running out of Sharpies, walk-in fridges are being used to recuperate mentally, and talented chefs are going home to eat potato chips. Mundane tasks like taxes, plumbing, and dishwashing are not inherently exciting but are realistic.
No hand doubles sneakily did any of the close-up chopping and cooking shots. The actors Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, who play Carmy and Sydney, respectively, were sent to the Institute of Culinary Education to make their cooking shots have a realistic motion and flow. At ICE, they were taught cooking skills like rolling dough, making stock, and the need to come to work 15 minutes early.
The Bear‘s creator and showrunner, Christopher Storer, was a frequent patron of the Chicago restaurant Mr. Beef. The interior of the Original Beef is directly copied from Mr. Beef. The result is a space that feels fittingly functionally dysfunctional.
Executive producer and showrunner Joanna Calo confirmed that the actual Mr. Beef was used to shoot some scenes. This often annoyed the customers waiting for their orders.
Chicago culture is a focal point of the show. There are references to its lingo, restaurants, popular beverages, sports history, a radio host cameo, and an overall “ambient Midwestern bleakness.”
Celebrity chef Matty Matheson plays the comic relief handyman Neil Fak, who never gets to cook.
Stress
The Beef’s staff escape their traumas through the rhythm of their work, which often causes further trauma. Elevating the food to become artistic masterpieces symbolizes a way for the cast to elevate themselves past their traumas.
In the past it has been tempting, when telling this sort of story, to paint violent self-destructiveness as a viable path on the artist’s way, and cruelty as a language of truth. But the “rock-star chef” archetype, so ubiquitous at the start of the twenty-first century, feels painfully dated now, and “The Bear” ’s rejection of that paradigm is in keeping with other recent shifts in food culture. – Helen Rosner, food writer for the New Yorker
Carmy tries to salvage the restaurant by bringing his classically trained experience as a chef. His ragtag staff rejects any structure that would impede their chaotic routine.
Carmy respectfully calls his staff “chef” contrasts his explosive temper when things invariably turn to chaos. His temper is born from his abusive head chef at his Michelin-star restaurant.
“Changing the formula” is not necessarily a force of good. Sydney sneaks her new dish to a critic to shake things up. The critic gives a rave review, ultimately setting a restaurant precedent. That stressfully high bar causes Sydney to quit. Changing one thing will change everything else.
Christopher Storer
In an interview with Esquire, show creator Christopher Storer explained his attention to detail in the show’s specific themes. Storer explains that he is close friends with Mr. Beef’s owner, and his creative process transpired in the restaurant.
Storer captured how kitchens seem on the brink of collapse at any given moment. Chefs frequently lose their sense of time and purpose outside of the kitchen. Comedic interactions with Mr. Beef’s patrons inspired the Richie character.
Storer saw the dynamic of his troubled family life reflected in many toxic kitchen environments. Both “families” unintentionally perpetuate a cycle of abuse. Carmy tries to avoid creating the same toxic environment he has dealt with while simultaneously fixing the Original Beef for the wrong reasons. Bright-eyed Sydney falls into the dark chaos of being a chef.
Matty Matheson compared kitchen tensions to a claustrophobic submarine. Everybody is on edge in a loud, hot, narrow hallway while intensely focused on their tasks.
Lionel, who plays Marcus, trained with Richard Hart in a Copenhagen bakery. His character goes to train his confectionary skills in Copenhagen during the second season. Like Marcus and his doughnut project, someone in the background is always carried away on some project.
Chef Reactions
The Bear emulates a real kitchen’s chaotic, cutthroat nature almost too well. That high-pressure environment breeds toxicity and abuse.
It was so accurate that it was triggering: The details of spilling a whole Cambro of veal stock, your peers hiding your mise en place, and still others turning up the stove when you weren’t looking. – Genevieve Yam, Bon Appetit
In particular, Carmy’s mannerisms meet the expectations of fine dining chefs. He always responds to his staff as “chef” out of respect, neatly cuts tape, and has nightmares about burning his mise en place.
The pursuit of excellence is characteristic of many fine dining chefs. On the other hand, that pursuit leaves chefs feeling empty once they leave their kitchen. Characters like Carmy and Richie, who abuse drugs, are realistic to the food service industry, which has the highest rate of substance use disorders.
Yelling out “corner” and “behind” to avoid collisions adds familiarity between the staff and is realistic about navigating a kitchen. Sadly, the messiness in the back-of-house, both literally and systematically, is also prevalent in kitchens.
Food reporter Emily Heil points out that the “claustrophobia-inducing, breakneck-speed-running back of the house of the Original Beef of Chicagoland” during the first season is the show’s most realistic point.
Exactly like Carmy, I’d make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when I got home and I’d lie on the couch, falling asleep with my hand in a bag of chips.
Jane Brendlinger, who has worked in various positions in New York restaurants for 10 years, wrote about the show’s accuracies and inaccuracies. The inaccuracies are for the sake of TV entertainment, with “moments of exaggeration and melodrama, somewhat excessive use of industry jargon.”
More than the terminology and the name-dropping, the show has captured a feeling: what it feels like when your passion is deeply vested in something so laborious and often fruitless.
Impact
Earlier this year, The Bear‘s third season (which you can stream on Hulu) proved that a fine-dining restaurant is no less stressful than a simple sandwich joint. Certainly, the show’s fourth season has the potential to improve on its realism.
