Bloomberg

Opinion | The Bear season 3 gets it wrong – restaurants can be a positive place, says real-life chef

Sure, the drama series has got plenty right – the kitchen shorthand, the second-nature chopping, the plating – but where has the hope gone?

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A still from season one of the The Bear. A real-life chef weighs in on what the show gets right and wrong about the hospitality industry, and her beef with season 3. Photo: FX

Bloomberg

Published: 4:45am, 3 Jul 2024

Katie Button is the co-founder and chief brand officer of Katie Button Restaurants, which operates Cúrate Tapas Bar in Asheville, North Carolina, in the US. In the past, she has staged at leading restaurants such as El Bulli in Spain and Jean-Georges in New York.

One of the selling points of the smash hit drama series The Bear has been its commitment to accuracy. The chefs at the namesake restaurant speak in familiar staccato shorthand, the chopping-as-second-nature is done right and the plating is on point.

And especially the high-intensity stress, which is familiar to people who have spent most of their professional lives in a kitchen.

In my case, that included training at El Bulli in Roses, Spain as well as with José Andrés at a few of his restaurants. After that, I opened my own place, the James Beard winning-Cúrate, in Asheville, North Carolina.

Katie Button is the co-founder and chief brand officer of Katie Button Restaurants, which operates Cúrate Tapas Bar in Asheville, North Carolina, in the US. Photo: Instagram/@chefkatiebutton

Set in Chicago, in the US state of Illinois, and starring a weary-eyed, muscle-bound Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) who, early on, quits his star chef job to rehabilitate his family’s Italian beef sandwich shop, the show’s third season kicks off by throwing us deep into a montage of Carmy’s past jobs at some of the world’s best restaurants.