It's official: French culinary icon Daniel Boulud is summer 2024's it chef. Fresh off his cover turn and feature in Wine Spectator's Aug. 31 Restaurant Awards issue, Boulud stole the show in this week's season 3 premiere of FX's The Bear.
For those in need of a Bear refresher, and to allow you another graf or two of safe reading before the spoilers start to spill, the Emmy-draped series produced by FX and streaming on Hulu stars Jeremy Allen White as chef Carmy Berzatto. Carmy was a Michelin-starred chef when he inherited his late brother's Italian beef stand. By season 2's end, the old Italian beef stand (and its ragtag staff) has been elevated to one of Chicago's most talked-about eateries.
It's a drama-heavy comedy-drama about the restaurant industry that tackles some very mature themes, and it delivers course after course of gratuitous gastroporn and world-class actors in uncomfortable conversations. It's also among our editors' favorite TV shows and movies for wine and food.
Last year, White won an Emmy for his role, as did his co-stars Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and the all-star cast has also included Jamie Lee Curtis, Olivia Colman, Josh Hartnett, Bob Odenkirk, John Mulaney, Joel McHale, Sarah Paulson, John Cena and many more talents. Will Guidara, former co-owner of Wine Spectator Grand Award winner Eleven Madison Park, is a co-producer of the show.
What happens in the season 3 premiere of The Bear? (Spoilers Ahead)
Season 3 debuts with a lengthy flashback (additional theme alert) to Carmy's education as a chef in some of the world's most prestigious dining institutions, from the French Laundry to Noma to Daniel. Noma chef René Redzepi makes a cameo (with French Laundry chef Thomas Keller waiting in the wings for the season finale), but it's all eyes on Boulud in the premiere of season 3 as he counsels Carmy in the kitchen of Daniel.
Can the Bear be a great restaurant without great wine?
With the title restaurant up and running in episode 3, we get our first glimpse of wine service, and it's not as flawless as dining guests or viewers deserved: A wine steward (Corey Hendrix) takes a corkscrew to an already mostly extracted cork at all kinds of wrong angles until it crumbles with an expletive. It's a clumsy and confusing exercise for a restaurant team that we've watched meticulously practice and perfect every other aspect of fine dining service.
We only get one more look at the wine program in the entire season, as two staffers discuss sobriety while stocking wine bottles in a storage room, the bottles standing upright rather than properly stored on their side.
Which chefs are in the season 3 finale of The Bear? (Even Bigger Spoilers Ahead)
The Bear's season 3 finale is packed with chefs—and this is your final spoiler alert!
In season 2, former Italian beef cook Richie (Moss-Bachrach) stages a week at real-life Chicago restaurant Ever, helmed IRL by chef Curtis Duffy and on The Bear by fictional chef Andrea Terry (Olivia Colman). The always-stellar Colman reprises her role as the sage veteran chef, now retiring, and the season culminates in a "funeral dinner" celebrating the closing of Ever. (The real-life Ever is very much open and accepting reservations—for three months from now.)
The episode includes a who's who of fine dining luminaries talking shop, including chefs Grant Achatz, Wylie Dufresne, Christina Tosi, Genie Kwon and many more.
Helping to tie up the season is Wine Spectator Grand Award–winning chef Thomas Keller, appearing as himself in another flashback, to Carmy's first day at the French Laundry, learning to debone and truss a chicken.
“I was honored to host so many of my peers from across the nation for these memorable scenes,” said Ever's Duffy in a statement. “We hope fans of the show realize that the writers have taken some liberties with this episode, and that the real Ever is open for business and thriving.”
“Looking out in that dining room and seeing all of those exceptional chefs and restaurateurs in one room, I was a bit awestruck,” said Ever co-owner Michael Muser. “The Bear showcases only the best, and Ever is proud to serve as the stage for greatness, both in entertainment and hospitality.”
More than anything, season 3 is a meditation on coping—with the loss of a loved one who's taken their own life, with divorce, with pregnancy, with debt, and with each other. If you enjoyed season 1 (and its weight), season 3 comes substantially in the form of prelude to season 1, and is likewise a return to heavy form after season 2's lighter and more uplifting storylines (excepting the entire season's worth of drama packed into the thrilling, hilarious and devastating Feast of the Seven Fishes episode).
Season 3 of The Bear brings a lot to the table. Like, a LOT, a lot. And even if family and work drama isn't your amuse bouche, watching the all-star cast and its guest chefs plate jaw-dropping composed dishes is more than enough to keep food-loving viewers returning for seconds and thirds. It's not to be missed.
The Bear's near-complete neglect of wine service is a quibble. But when it comes to running the world's finest restaurants, it's resolving the quibbles that makes all the difference. For a show that glamorizes (nearly) everything cool and gritty about the fine dining world, the message seems to be that wine … isn't that cool or gritty. There's a growing field of exciting and passionate young wine professionals that would disagree.
The entire new season 3 of FX's The Bear is now streaming on Hulu.
