“I probably could have done great if I kept going,” Chen says. The Bear peels back the curtain on the painful reality of what it’s like to work in a kitchen, and the emotional and physical cost that comes with it.įor Wesley Chen, a former cook, The Bear reaffirmed that leaving the restaurant industry was the right decision. We all agreed the show is a stark reminder of our trauma. After watching, I spoke with other restaurant workers. It reminded me a little too much of what it was like to fend for myself in a chaotic, cutthroat kitchen. It was so accurate that it was triggering: The details of spilling a whole Cambro of veal stock, your peers hiding your mise en place, and still others turning up the stove when you weren’t looking. Not because I thought it was bad television-but because it was the most accurate portrayal of life in a restaurant kitchen I’ve seen in a while. I responded the only way I knew: “Yes, chef.” I used to work in Michelin-starred restaurants, and at the last restaurant I worked at, a sous-chef asked if I was stupid and if there was something wrong with me for not understanding what they were asking me to do. I knew the show was fiction, but the scene could have been lifted straight from my memory.
When I watched this part, I had to pause.
In The Bear, Hulu’s new TV series dramatizing-and nailing-toxic restaurant culture, the main character recalls a chef berating him. Why don’t you say this? Say, ‘Yes, chef, I’m so tough.’” “Why are you so slow? Why are you so fucking slow? Why? You think you’re so tough.
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