CABLE | Squashing the (Italian) Beef – 'The Bear' Sizzles

"Let it rip!"

FX Productions

Created by veteran television producer/director Christopher Storer, the awkwardly titled The Bear is a blistering Chicago-set half-hour dramedy about cooking in the dysfunctional kitchen of a rundown family restaurant. Starring Jeremy Allen White as a hotshot chef from the toxic world of fine dining taking over his deceased brother's sandwich shop, FX's frenzied series is just as stressfully chaotic as it is enthralling to watch.

Co-starring Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Ayo Edebiri as possibly the most frustrating cousin coworker ever and an ambitious young chef protégé, The Bear intimately captures the many different colourful characters and unique backgrounds that make up any ragtag team of cooks. "The Original Beef of Chicagoland", the restaurant within the show, certainly feels like a real neighbourhood eatery that's been an institution in its working-class neighbourhood thanks to its detailed portrayal in the series.

White, who joins the show after leading another wild Chicago family comedy in Shameless, serves ably as the central focus of all of the characters' intersecting personal tensions. We get to see all the interpersonal drama Anthony Bourdain wrote so vividly about in his seminal culinary journal, Kitchen Confidential.

By unfolding the dark comedy of The Bear over the course of eight lean episodes, the show mines so much intriguing and entertaining humour from its appealing but flawed characters. White fits as a great vessel for past relationship trauma as Storer and co-showrunner Joanna Calo's direction heightens the emotional turmoil of its subjects as a gritty love letter to restaurants

The Bear's eight-episode first season will be available to stream weekly on Disney+ Star in Canada starting August 3rd (and on Hulu now in the U.S.).


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