Get ready — Carmy’s kitchen isn’t just cooking meals anymore; it’s cooking up betrayals, breakdowns, and drama hotter than a blazing oven. FX’s breakout hit is back with knives sharper, stakes higher, and emotions rawer than ever. Who will survive the heat? Why is everyone obsessed? Here’s the full scoop before the season drops — because this is one dish you can’t afford to miss!

Here’s Everything You Need to Know About ‘The Bear’ Ahead of the Season 4 Premiere

Những cảm hứng thiết kế bếp từ bộ phim "The Bear"

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Has The Bear been on your to-watch list forever, but you still don’t know what you’re getting into? Do you need a refresher on what Carmy has been up to and/or yelling about? Or are you a proud Chicagoan who has resisted the show, for what television program can do this fine and complicated city justice? Here’s a quick guide to The Bear, ahead of the season 4 premiere on June 25 on Hulu.

WARNING: Light spoilers below.

What is The Bear?

The Bear : cauchemar en cuisine | France Culture

The Bear is a comedy-drama television program that stars Jeremey Allen White as Carmy Berzatto, a talented fine dining chef who returns to Chicago to run his family’s no-frills Italian beef joint after his brother’s unexpected death. While the restaurant industry and fine dining are the vehicle for the story, it explores life outside the kitchen too, as well as the mental health and growth (or not) of its characters. It was created by Christopher Storer and premiered on FX back in 2022, and has won multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards. It’s also gotten positive feedback for its realistic portrayal of restaurant kitchens.

What happened in the previous seasons?

(Skip this one if you don’t want light spoilers!)

The Bear' Season 3: Everything We Know So Far

Let’s do a quick recap of each season, shall we? In season 1, Carmy returns to run his family’s Italian beef joint, The Original Beef of Chicagoland, after his brother, Mikey, unexpectedly died by suicide. A talented young chef named Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) shows up to help, since Carmy is somewhat of a wunderkind in the fine dining sphere and she has ambitions of her own. Carmy tries to get a resistant staff to run the place like a professional restaurant, but the business is in shambles, and Carmy is dealing with grief from his brother’s death and panic attacks from a former boss who was, to put it mildly, super-duper toxic. Carmy is often at odds and in shouting matches with the vulgar but spirited Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a family friend and “cousin” who helped Mikey run the place. By the end of the season, they close the beef shop and plan to replace it with a fine dining restaurant.

In season 2, the restaurant is closed as the team begins to rebuild and design the new space, and as the chefs begin to create the menu and grow in their individual roles. Carmy’s sister Natalie (Abby Elliot) takes on a role as project manager. Sydney explores the cuisine of Chicago (more on that below); aspiring pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) learns the art of making delicate pastries from a renowned chef in Copenhagen; Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) goes to culinary school; and Richie learns his own potential while staging at a super high-end Chicago restaurant. (Staging is a sort of quick unpaid apprenticeship in a kitchen, a cooking industry term that has been introduced to the wider public thanks in large part to The Bear.) Carmy finds love, but the state of that relationship is about as delicate as his own mental state on any given day. This season features the famous “Fishes” episode, a flashback to a Berzatto family Christmas that will make your stressful family holidays look like a wholesome Boy Scout meeting. The season concludes with an explosive friends and family soft opening of the new restaurant, called The Bear.

In season 3, Carmy, Sydney, and the team behind The Bear deal with the growing pains and financial woes of opening a new restaurant. Sydney begins to question Carmy’s leadership capabilities while Tina and Marcus grow more confident in their chef skills, and Richie thrives in a new role despite still constantly butting heads with Carmy. There are a couple of bottle episodes in this season, including a flashback to Tina’s life before working at The Original Beef of Chicagoland, and an intimate episode in which Natalie deals with both the pain of labor and her mother’s oppressive presence. The season leaves off with some ambiguity around the make-or-break first review of the restaurant.

So, is it more of a comedy or a drama?

According to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (the Emmys) and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the Golden Globes), it’s a comedy; it won both awards for best comedy series. It is funny, with characters both significant and fleeting delivering plenty of laughs. But it’s less of a several-jokes-per-minute sitcom and more of a, “Ha, wow, my mother also gets sauce on the ceiling and chain smokes while cooking seven types of fish for Christmas!” kind of a laugh. So, it’s a dramedy. I would personally argue it’s more of a drama since after several episodes I’ve had to take a long, calming walk in fresh air. (Here’s my plea to have television awards broken down by run time as opposed to comedy vs. drama.)

What’s with all the yelling?

The Bear' Creator Christopher Storer on Capturing Restaurant Culture and  Trauma

Restaurant kitchens are high-stress environments. Ask your service industry friends. So far in the show, Carmy has his fair share of, as the kids say these days, “crash-outs.” Famously, he screams at Sydney’s character to “Get the [bleep] off my expo, chef! Now!” He also has an unrivaled shouting match with Richie while locked in a walk-in fridge on an important night. The show is at times stressful to watch, as it tries to keep pace with a disorganized kitchen and its dysfunctional but skilled leader. But there are also beautifully quiet moments, like Marcus’s trip to Copenhagen in season 2, or when Tina has a heart-to-heart with Carmy’s older brother in a season 3 flashback episode.

What influence does Chicago have on the show?

The answer is: lots. Chicago plays its own role as the setting of the series. The show is filmed in Chicago, and the exterior of the real-life beef stand Mr. Beef is used as the restaurant exterior in season 1. Its interior was also copied for the set. In season 1, episode 7 (one of the most stressful episodes to watch, much of it a single 18-minute-long take), the voice of the late WXRT host Lin Brehmer introduces the stripped-down acoustic version of the Sufjan Stevens song “Chicago.” The intro shows beauty shots of the city on a cold, sunny morning, interspersed with real Chicagoans, shots of iconic restaurants and landmarks, historical footage of the city, and the characters on their way to work. It’s enough to make any Chicagoan wipe away a single tear before straightening up those broad shoulders.

In season 2, part of an episode features Sydney, in search of inspiration for the new menu, visiting real-life Chicago chefs and restaurants. In it, you can see: Avec, Giant, Kasama, Lao Peng You, Margie’s Candies, Pizza Lobo, and Publican Quality Meats. At the latter, Sydney talks with real Chicago chef Rob Levitt, and at Avec, she has a conversation with One Off Hospitality restaurateur Donnie Madia. Also in season 2, Richie sprints to Pequod’s on a fine-dining mission, and Tina sings some karaoke at Alice’s Lounge.

In other episodes, the show also features several real chefs and restaurateurs from around the world – and chefs with Chicago connections, including chef Grant Achtaz of Alinea, chef Genie Kwon of Kasama, pastry chef Anna Posey of Elske, and Kevin Boehm of the Boka Restaurant Group,

Chicago’s aversion to ketchup also makes its way into the series. In a scene in season 1, Carmy and Richie cater a kid’s birthday party, and Carmy scolds Richie for not bringing ketchup. Tried and true Chicagoan Richie asks, “What kind of a—–e is gonna put ketchup on a hot dog?” Carmy replies, “A child, Richie.” See, it can be funny!

The list could go on.

Why do I hear so much about The Bear?

Like anything popular, the show has toed the line with cultural saturation with just how much Chicago media have written about it. (I admit guilt with this piece!) But, like anything popular, it is loved for a reason. The critically-acclaimed show has authentically explored an industry that was shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic with award-winning performances. After its initial success in season 1, it drew in lots of cameos from big actors, from Olivia Coleman and Sarah Paulsen to an extremely memorable performance by Jamie Lee Curtis as Carmy’s mother.

It has had a pretty significant cultural impact – making Italian beef more broadly known outside of Chicago, and adding “Yes, Chef!” and other kitchen terminology (“Behind!” “Corner!”) to people’s everyday lexicon.

The Bear has also launched a new multi-threat star in actor-writer-director Ayo Edebiri and catapulted Jeremy Allen White – who is now slated to play The Boss in a Bruce Springsteen biopic – to “Internet boyfriend” status. Both actors have won Emmys for their performances, as have Moss-Bachrach and Colón-Zayas. A viral Jeremy Allen White lookalike contest held in Chicago in 2024 even propelled a suburban man to local fame after he was crowned the winner.

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