if bear Known for taking pains to portray the reality of being a chef, the FX on Hulu original series kicked off its first season with loud yelling, banging pots and pans, and beautiful cooking scenes that gave viewers an insight into what a chef's job is like. It also offered a window into what it's like to have that relentless desire to bring joy to others through cooking, even when it feels like your kitchen is on fire — and sometimes, literally.
Season 2 did all of that and more, taking the characters outside of the fictional restaurant, The Original Beef of Chicagoland, and into real-life eateries. Pastry chef Marcus trained at Noma in Copenhagen (where Marcus Livingston II, widely cited as the inspiration for his character, served as head pastry chef after stints at Per Se, Le Cirque, and wd~50), and executive chef Sydney visited Chicago restaurants like Kasama and Publican Quality Meats for menu inspiration. bear It subtly blurs the lines between the world of head chef/owner Carmy and the lives of people in the real restaurant business. Bears In the third and latest season, it was removed entirely.
From the very first episode, season three felt bloated with cameos from real chefs that didn't align with the show's core message. bear I've aimed to humanize the chef archetype – either a totally godlike chef or a tough, brooding chef. Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography Author Laurie Woolever said, bear “Jeremy Allen White's Chef Carmie may be a chain-smoking ruffian, but he's also a grieving brother, a prodigal son, a self-deprecating go-getter and a bewildered product of chaos and dysfunction,” showrunners Chris Stoller and culinary director Courtney Stoller said in a statement when the siblings were named the 2024 Food & Wine Game Changers.
Cooking shows featuring many celebrities and fascinating cooking documentaries. Chef's TableThe most famous chefs have become powerful icons and are revered as creative geniuses, not to mention the everlasting accolades of culinary circles such as James Beard Awards, Michelin stars and awards, World's 50 Best, and even Food & Wine's Best New Chefs list (Carmy himself earned the title of Best New Chef that particular year). But with that fame comes the pressure to maintain that iconic status, which can sometimes lead to unhealthy dynamics between the chef and the rest of the team tasked with executing that vision and keeping the day-to-day operations running.
This issue begins to become evident in Season 3, when Carmy yells at his team throughout service and ignores Sydney's contributions to the restaurant's menu in pursuit of external accolades for himself. He scraps most of the menu items Sydney conceived and executed during a meal with friends and family in Season 2, and ignores her new ideas in the daily research and development process (he settles on raviolo and amberjack when she suggested cavatelli and yellowtail). Carmy fails to apologize when Sydney chastises him in Episode 9 by saying, “It's hard to keep up with you sometimes.” Carmy is so attached to his ideas and stressed about building a legacy that he loses sight of how he is damaging the people around him.
So it's puzzling that a show that places so much importance on this issue of how accolades, media recognition, and the desire for stardom can take such a toll on chefs and restaurants devotes so much time to celebrity chefs. The first episode of this season features cameos from 1988 F&W Best New Chef Daniel Boulud and world-renowned Danish chef René Redzepi, but flashbacks in which Carmy recounts her days at their restaurants say nothing about the people behind the personas. For those who regularly watch cooking shows or keep up with restaurant news, these chefs are big names. But the average viewer, perhaps one who is learning about the hospitality industry for the first time from a chef's perspective, is probably not getting to see them from the chef's point of view. bear — They may think they're just actors.
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Boulud teaches Carmy how to make his most famous dish, with Redzepi nodding to Carmy from across the room. The same thing happens in the opening scene of the third and final episode, when 1988 F&W Best New Chef Thomas Keller teaches Carmy how to tie a chicken and gives him some career advice: “Come to work every day and try to do it a little better than the day before.”
There's certainly a purpose behind these scenes – to let viewers learn more about Carmy's background and the chefs who have influenced him along the way. But if we're on the sidelines of Original Beef and Bear, learning the good, the bad, and the ugly of Carmy's ethos, then perhaps Carmy walked away with a more well-rounded perspective on his restaurant past. Instead, the cameos felt like just another bland celebrity entrance saying, “How lucky Carmy was to have them.”
Don't get me wrong: Boulud, Redzepi, and Keller are all extremely talented and deserve all of the success they've had, and there are plenty of places you can find out more about the complicated minds behind these three chefs, including Daniel Boulud's memoir. Letter to a Young Chefa 2016 documentary about Norma; Ants on shrimpand the 2013 documentary, Sense of urgency About “The French Laundry” (which was actually directed by Chris Stoller himself).
but, bearis a show that prioritizes character depth and nuance, yet these “human” chefs seem less human than Carmie, Sydney, or even Andrea Terry, Ever's fictional chef, played by Olivia Colman. In the few scenes with Terry, we learn that she loves Ever's team deeply, that she cares about people more than food, and that, in her own words, she “wants to sleep more, go to London more, go to parties and meet people.”
I find it frustrating for a lot of reasons that the only real celebrity chef who mentors Kermie is a white man, and the only woman, had to be a fictional, if brilliantly written, character. It's even more frustrating that the only other fictional character who mentors Kermie is essentially a supervillain. Joel McHale gives a fantastic performance as David Fields, the chef who verbally and psychologically abuses Kermie in the kitchen, but his character is completely cartoonish.
Fields packs all the nasty aspects of working in the restaurant industry into one character. He whispers demoralizing insults to Carmie as he plates his precise dishes, writes down ideas for ingredients and techniques, and repeatedly tells him he won't succeed, all in threatening whispers. There are mean, nasty, and harmful chefs out there, but even they are human. McHale's character, combined with the real-life chefs in the film, makes for a strong, visceral, and visceral character. bear When you look at them side by side, it might seem like there are only two types of successful chefs: good chefs and bad chefs. But in reality, most chefs fall somewhere in between, and Carmie is one of them.
Episode 10, “The Funeral,” fleshes out the chef cameos even more. At a dinner celebrating the fictional closing of Eber, real-life chefs and restaurateurs attend, including Christina Tosi, her husband and season 3 co-producer Will Guidara, 2022 F&W Best New Chef Jeannie Kwong, and even the real Malcolm Livingston II, to commiserate about their shared experiences. The scene itself was largely unscripted, with the chefs naturally talking about the first dish they made for the restaurant's menu, the impact of having a bad boss, and the joys of cooking. Whether viewers recognize it or not, every word added depth to the public's perception of these real-life, ultra-successful chefs. Still, it felt like the scene was too long and swallowed the entire episode, leaving too many storylines unresolved (will Sydney quit Bear or not?!).
At the end of season three, Chef's far too many cameos feel more self-indulgent than intentional. bear Even without the introduction of celebrity hospitality gurus, it was already tapping into the culinary zeitgeist. Season 3 was satisfying enough, but I wanted more development for the recurring characters and more time in Bear's kitchen. I want to see more of Marcus honing his pastry skills. I want to see more of Richie finding creative ways to surprise and delight guests. I want to see more of Sydney. I want to see more people whose outlook on life changes after eating a seriously good Italian beef sandwich. Instead, we were served a plate full of cold cameos.
