Yes … Who? Here Are the Chefs Who Appear in ‘The Bear.’
This article includes spoilers from Season 3 of “The Bear.”
Three seasons in, it is clear “The Bear” knows how to book a guest star.
Last season, this FX series about a chef — named Carmen Berzatto, but Carmy to nearly everyone — who transforms his family’s Italian beef sandwich shop into a fine-dining restaurant called the Bear, featured a parade of Hollywood celebrities including Jamie Lee Curtis and Olivia Colman. In the new season, currently streaming on Hulu, “The Bear” is showing off its food-world bona fides with a series of cameos from star chefs.
In the premiere episode, titled “Tomorrow,” Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy reflects on his past, which leads to a series of flashbacks that take him to the kitchens of renowned establishments like Noma in Copenhagen and Daniel in Manhattan. Then, as a bookend, the season finale features a host of dining luminaries attending a closing dinner for Ever, a restaurant run in the show by Colman’s character, Andrea Terry. Colman is one of many returning guest stars (Curtis is another). Famous newcomers to “The Bear” include John Cena and Josh Hartnett, as well as the “Billions” co-creator and noted restaurant lover Brian Koppelman in an acting role.
That finale, titled “Forever,” blends fiction and reality in a way now familiar to “Bear” fans. That’s because Ever is a real restaurant in Chicago that is “open for business and thriving,” Curtis Duffy, one of the owners, said in a statement. Duffy also said he was “honored to host so many of my peers from across the nation.” And, in addition to Ever, the series continues to feature various Chicago spots, including the Croatian cafe Doma and the sausage purveyor Jim’s Original.
But it’s the chefs who steal the spotlight. Here’s who enters Carmy’s orbit this year.
Daniel Boulud
In the flashback-heavy season premiere, Carmy, while standing outside O’Hare International Airport, tells his sister, Natalie (Abby Elliott), that “New York’s got everything.” The next thing we know, he’s at 65th Street and Park Avenue entering Daniel, the elegant domain of Daniel Boulud. Boulud himself soon appears onscreen, training Carmy directly. One of the dishes we see Boulud showing Carmy how to prepare is his famous sea bass wrapped in thin strips of potato, which he developed at Le Cirque. A 1989 article in The New York Times explained that “the dish works brilliantly for several reasons. The crunchiness of the ultrathin potatoes contrasts with the delicate bass but does not bully it; the heavily reduced, almost pungent, red-wine sauce is counterbalanced beautifully by the sweet leeks.”
