Hulu’s new series The Bear has received critical acclaim and praise for its honest and realistic depiction of the chaos and stress that comes with working in a professional kitchen. The series follows former gourmet chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) as he takes over his deceased brother Mikey’s sandwich shop, The Original Beef of Chicagoland, following his suicide. The show does a great job at not just depicting life in the restaurant industry, but also sheds light on the substance abuse and mental health issues that many chefs face in a high-stress and demanding environment. The Bear fully immerses you into the mind of the cook, sometimes to an anxiety-inducing extent.
Besides the heavy topics, The Bear keeps up with staying funny and focusing on the food to a point that the food can sometimes feel like a character — a very attractive character. It’s certainly not a show to binge on an empty stomach because of how it talks and describes its dishes, plus the close-up shots of them. You’ll most likely be left drooling at your screen while watching.
The Bear has been picked up for a second season, so we can look forward to more appetizing dishes on our screens soon. Until then, here are the most mouth-watering dishes from season 1. And if you want to learn how to cook these dishes (or at least something close to them), and others from the show, check out Eating Well’s article for recipes.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
5 Marcus’ Perfect Donut
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Marcus (Lionel Boyce), the restaurant’s pastry chef, spent almost the entirety of The Bear’s season 1 trying to make the perfect donut. Of all the characters on the show, Marcus is the one that shows the most heart and love for what he does. His passion for baking is shown in the way he focuses all his attention on creating and the amount of knowledge and love he has for the craft of baking. So, when he finally presents the perfect donut — granted at the wrong time — he’s excited to show it to any of the cooks. And what he does present is a homemade jelly-filled glazed donut. All the hard work he put in, the excitement he had when he finally made it, and Carmy’s smile when he finally tried it tells us that the donut was worth the trouble he went through to make it.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
4 Lemon Chicken Piccata
Carmy was inspired to make his mom’s dish after a phone call with his sister Sugar (Abby Elliott) in episode three of The Bear’s season 1, which is where we see the first glimpse as Sugar is preparing it. However, it’s when Carmy is showing the restaurant cooks how to make it that makes it seem even more appetizing as he gives descriptive step-by-step instructions. The dish requires a type of sauce made from shallots, garlic, capers, white wine, hot chicken stock, butter, pepper, salt, lemon, and parsley spooned onto a cooked chicken breast. Once again, it’s a reaction from another character, Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), that makes us believe the dish must be unbelievably good to leave a character that usually has a lot to say, speechless. On top of the fact that watching as the sauce gets cooked up in a pan while listening to Carmy’s detailed instructions makes it sound divine.
3 Carmy’s Italian Beef Sandwich
The first dish we are introduced to in The Bear season 1 by Carmy is one of the signature dishes of the restaurant. In the first episode, we watch Carmy prepare the beef for the dish and even argue with Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), the best friend and business partner of Mikey, about sticking to the original recipe instead of trying to change things. Of course, when the other cooks finally try Carmy’s version of the sandwich, they’re blown away and prove his talent for cooking to the rest of the cooks, and that he was right at his attempt to alter the menu. Richie couldn’t even deny how good the sandwich was as he was seen enjoying it himself at the end of the episode. The reaction to trying the sandwich, plus the look of the sandwich, made it all the more appealing.
2 Mikey’s Spaghetti
The beginning of The Bear starts with one of the arguments between Richie and Carmy, about keeping Mikey’s (Jon Bernthal) spaghetti on the menu, but Carmy is firm on removing it. We never see the spaghetti until the final episode after Carmy gets to read the letter his brother left him before he died. This inspires him to want to cook the dish that customers loved to order, and season 1 ends with the entire kitchen crew sitting together with a big bowl of the spaghetti in the middle, talking and laughing, and enjoying the food. You can never go wrong with a simple bowl of spaghetti. It’s nothing special: garlic, onion, basil, olive oil, butter, and two cans of San Marzano tomatoes, but pasta never looks anything but delicious.
1 Sydney’s Cola-Braised Short Rib and Risotto
After carrying the idea for a couple of episodes of The Bear, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) finally presented the dish to Carmy to try in episode six, and after accidently serving it to a critic before the dish was even on the menu, it received the praise that got the restaurant a huge wave of orders. The short rib is famous for its rich taste and, when served with the perfect sauce, can become anyone’s favorite cut of meat. Especially when it’s cola-braised. The carbonation of the soda helps break down meat fibers and make them tender and juicy. With all that in mind, plus the pairing with risotto, a creamy Italian rice dish that gets cooked in broth, you can practically taste it, leaving you wanting to go to the nearest restaurant that can serve anything close to what’s shown on the screen.
