Some time over the past few decades, a strange thing happened: We started treating chefs as temperamental rock stars and restaurants as a barometer of cultural vitality.
But with growing cultural importance came heightened scrutiny of the restaurant industry’s failings: poor pay, punishing hours, a toxic culture of macho aggression and brutality.
Into this environment in 2022 came “The Bear,” a show that seemed both forged in the fire of the food world’s worst excesses and determined to seek a way out of the inferno.
But the televised fantasy of a better, more moral restaurant culture — with better, more moral chefs — is part of what makes the show such intoxicating entertainment.
Carmy exhibits both the worst and the best elements of the tortured chef-genius archetype.
Persons:
Carmen Berzatto, —, Céline, Picasso, Beethoven, David Chang, Marco Pierre White, Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain
Organizations:
Mission
Locations:
New York, Los Angeles, Chicago