How Would the Restaurant in ‘The Bear’ Work in Real Life?
When Season 3 of “The Bear” dropped last week, fans and food-world insiders got yet another chance to play restaurant-culture bingo. The incessant precision-snipping of green tape for the labeling of peas shelled during prep? Check. The “fancy, new earthenware” plates the restaurant’s financial backer derided as he surveyed the allocation of his funds? Yes. The constant need for new C-fold towels? Always, Chef.
Devoted restaurantgoers recognized real chefs, real restaurants (Noma, Daniel, Ever, the French Laundry) and real “Orwellian butter” (a reference to Thomas Keller’s preferred Animal Farm Creamery butter, from Orwell, Vt.). Certain other details — the lack of influencers in the dining room, a menu of costly dishes that changes every single day — seemed less realistic.
We wondered: If the Bear were an actual restaurant, how would it truly run? We consulted hospitality experts, economists, chefs and longtime maître d’s to help parse the touchstones that make the show feel so authentic, and to explain how the restaurant would operate as a true fine-dining destination in Chicago in pursuit of a Michelin star.
Daily Menu Overhauls (?!)
In Episode 2, Carmy Berzatto (played by Jeremy Allen White) declares, “We’re gonna get a star.” To get the attention of the Michelin judges, he decides the whole menu needs to change every day.
Curtis Duffy, the chef and co-owner of Ever — where most of this season’s finale takes place — said that a restaurant of the Bear’s caliber should actually take the opposite approach. “If Michelin is shopping you, it boils down to how consistent you can be with a meal over and over,” he said.
