We’re on the last season of The Bear now, that TV show (on Hulu and Disney) about a small Chicago sandwich shop that became a fancy sit-down place seeking a Michelin star.
The show was good, but it was the depictions of restaurant logistics — both front and back of house — that really fascinated me. How realistic was the show? Are there any better depictions of restaurant operations, like an actual documentary instead of a drama that happens to take place in a restaurant?
I’ve never worked in food service. Are they really that chaotic and brutal and unhealthy, with people working crazy hours and shouting “heard!”, “hands!” and “all day!” all the time? The show had a rather, uh, volatile cast of characters, even by Chicago standards. Are real establishments also that unhinged?
If not, what does an actually well-run restaurant operation look like? Could one be run calmly, nicely, while still being efficient?
Chef! while a comedy seemed fairly realistic (I worked at a resort kitchen for several summers - kitchens can be very hectic and shouty, but in my experience there’s a sense of common purpose that restrains any tendency to real unpleasantness)
I didn’t care for The Bear — I thought it ramped up the combative pressure-cooker stuff to an unpleasantly melodramatic and stressful level, so I bailed on it early and I can’t speak to its long-term fidelity to restaurant realism.
However, I can speak to the more general question about seeing restaurant operations on screen.
The most faithful and compelling depiction of what it’s like to run a restaurant, in my opinion, is the obscure Danny Aiello vehicle Dinner Rush. The mob-conspiracy plot that’s overlaid on the restaurant setting is kind of silly, but the portrayal of the restaurant itself, the business and the logistics and the challenges of staff management, is absolutely spot on.
Since you also asked for a documentary, I’ll suggest A Matter of Taste, which aired on HBO in 2011 and follows several years in the career of Paul Liebrandt — not a household-name chef like Bobby Flay or Thomas Keller, but certainly an industry-famous (or infamous) figure. This is a real warts-and-all film about a driven, divisive culinary artist trying to make his mark.
I’ll also note that the vast majority of so-called restaurant movies are just terrible, getting very little right about the business or the personalities involved. Something like Burnt, starring Bradley Cooper, is just a laughable train wreck from beginning to end, in terms of restaurant operation (and it’s not a very good movie-movie, either). The movies that get the food industry even approximately correct comprise a very, very short list.
But now imagine you’re in the same loud and shouty kitchen, but half the employees, including your boss(es) are family members and even through they’re shouting at each other about silverware or menus there’s clearly some resentment going on too.
I work in a family business with lots of my Italian family members. While amped up for entertainment purposes, the family aspect of The Bear hit home.
I don’t think it’s fair to look at this show as if it’s just a show about a restaurant. The family angle is very important as well. This show was a very literal interpretation of what can happen when you have ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’. Too many people that think they’re in charge or want to be in charge or are angry that they’re not in charge, too many people that know better than everyone else and a lot of thinly veiled resentment bubbling just under the surface and this can be the result.
There is a series on Apple TV called Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars, that goes into actual competing restaurants. Management can differ wildly, and there are scenes of a head chef chastising sous-chefs for their lack of attention to detail and threatening them with termination, etc. Not as dramatic as “The Bear”, but the stress and tension is obvious.
I’ve been liking the show, but the logistics make no sense. They have a very large staff, but the restaurant seems like a take-out place with less than ten tables. The exterior shots show that the building must use Time Lord technology to fit everything inside.