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This article contains spoilers from season 3 of ‘The Bear’.
After three seasons, it’s clear that “The Bear” knows how to book a guest star.
Last season, this FX series, about a chef — named Carmen Berzatto, but Carmy to almost anyone — who transforms his family’s Italian beef deli into a gourmet 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” shows off its food world bona fides with a series of celebrity chef cameos.
In the premiere episode, titled “Tomorrow,” Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy reflects on his past, leading to a series of flashbacks that take him into the kitchens of renowned establishments like Copenhagen’s Noma and Manhattan’s Daniel. Then, as a bookend, the season finale features a host of dining luminaries attending a closing dinner for Ever, a restaurant run on the show by Colman’s character Andrea Terry. Colman is one of several returning guest stars (Curtis is another). Celebrity newcomers to “The Bear” include John Cena and Josh Hartnett, as well as “Billions” co-creator and noted restaurant enthusiast 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 Chicago restaurant 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 colleagues from across the country.” And in addition to Ever, the series also continues to feature several places in Chicago, including Croatian cafe Doma and sausage purveyor Jim’s Original.
But it’s the chefs who steal the spotlight. Here’s who’s entering Carmy’s orbit this year.
Daniel Boulud
In the flashback-heavy season premiere, while standing outside O’Hare International Airport, Carmy tells his sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) that “New York has 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 on screen and trains 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 court works brilliantly for several reasons. The crispiness of the ultra-thin potatoes contrasts with the delicate bass, but doesn’t bully it; the greatly reduced, almost spicy red wine sauce is beautifully offset by the sweet leek.”
René Redzepi
Last season, the Bear’s chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) headed to Copenhagen to develop his talents, following in his boss’s footsteps. Now, we get a glimpse of Carmy’s time there, specifically at the acclaimed restaurant Noma, under the tutelage of René Redzepi. As Redzepi studies a wall of photographs of dishes, he and Carmy exchange a glance and a nod. Last year, Redzepi announced that he would close Noma, which currently holds three Michelin stars, for regular service at the end of 2024.
Dave Berran
Beran is the chef behind French restaurant Pasjoli in Los Angeles. But on screen, in the premiere, you see him in a flashback working with Carmy at Ever under the tutelage of Colman’s character.
Paulie James
In the sixth and seventh episodes of season 3, you can keep an eye on Paulie James, one of the founders of the Los Angeles mini-sandwich chain Uncle Paulie’s Deli. a celebrity favorite. In the seventh, titled “Legacy”, James shows up to keep Bear’s Italian beef window running smoothly, along with Christopher Zucchero, owner of Mr. Beef, the real-life inspiration for the show’s original store. Zucchero has appeared occasionally in “The Bear”, as Chi-Chi, since its inception.
Thomas Keller
The premiere also sees Carmy basking in the California glory of the French Laundry. In the finale, Laundry chef Thomas Keller (also of Per Se ) takes the stage in a cold open. Keller teaches Carmy — seen in a flashback to his first day at the restaurant preparing the family meal — how to remove a wishbone from a chicken and truss the bird. “I know people call me a chef, but our job is cooking, and for me it’s such a profound job because we’re really part of people’s lives in important ways,” Keller says. “So never forget that.”
Award Achatz
One of the restaurants synonymous with fine dining in Chicago is Grant Achatz’s Alinea, so it makes sense that Achatz would show up to attend the “funeral” for Ever. There, Will Poulter’s character Luca, introduced in Copenhagen last season, interrogates him and asks specifically about it Alinea’s edible balloons and Achatz’s “Truffle Explosion,” described in a 2016 Food & Wine article by Pete Wells as ‘exploding ravioli’.
Kevin Boehm
During the funeral meal, Carmy talks with Kevin Boehm, co-chief executive and co-founder of the Boka Restaurant Group. Boka has a number of notable restaurants across the country, including Lee Wolen’s namesake Boka in Chicago; Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat, with locations in Chicago and Los Angeles; and Michael Solomonov’s Laser Wolf in Brooklyn.
Wylie Dufresne
Wylie Dufresne is also at the party, serving as the nucleus around which many of the other guests revolve. He currently runs Stretch Pizza in New York, but is best known for the groundbreaking WD-50, which closed a decade ago. Wells wrote in The New York Times, “No other chef has done as much as Mr. Dufresne to make kitchen nerds cool,” so he’s a perfect fit for “The Bear.”
Christina Tosi
Christina Tosi is a pastry chef best known as the founder of Milk Bar, which offers her creations such as soft serve ice cream with cereal milk. But one of her first jobs was at WD-50. During the funeral dinner at the table with Carmy and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), she talks about making “cornbread ice cream” and points to Dufresne, explaining that he “took me through the whole spectrum. How many different ways can you make ice cream taste like cornbread? It turns out it took months and months of work in different ways. That’s why I became obsessed with ice cream.”
Will Guidara
Tosi is married to Will Guidara, who also appears at Ever’s farewell. He led the Make It Nice hospitality group together with Chef Daniel Humm until their partnership ended in 2019. Guidara wrote the book “Unreasonable Hospitality” and is embedded in the “Bear” world. He has a story credit on this season’s third episode, “Doors,” and is a co-producer on the series.
Anna Posey
Anna Posey, another of Carmy and Sydney’s dining companions, is the chef at the Michelin-starred Elske in Chicago, which she runs with her husband, David Posey.
Malcolm Livingston II
Over dinner, Malcolm Livingston II talks about making a ganache that “Alex” considers “the best ganache ever.” That would most likely be Alex Stupak of Empellón in Manhattan, a student of—where else?—WD-50. Livingston succeeded Stupak at that Dufresne locationLivingston now runs August Novelties, a line of dairy-free frozen desserts, but he was also head of pastry at Noma.
Rosio Sanchez
During the Ever dinner, Luca compliments Rosio Sanchez about a dessert she developed with “negroni ice cream on top.” A native of Chicago, Sanchez is now a mainstay in Copenhagen. She worked at Noma before opening her taqueria, Hija De Sanchez, followed by her restaurant Sanchez.
Genie Kwon
Genie Kwon’s Filipino restaurant Kasama already had a major moment in “The Bear”: In the Season 2 episode “Sundae,” Sydney stops by and orders the longanisa (a Filipino sausage) breakfast sandwich with a hash brown, as well as the mushroom adobo and a mango tart. Kwon is at the Ever dinner, discussing how she doesn’t necessarily enjoy cooking, but knew she always wanted to “make things for people.”
