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Chef Brian Lockwood also plated dishes on-camera and consulted production on how realistic the kitchen scenes really felt.
One of the things that made Hulu’s The Bear—which wrapped its final season last month—such a hit was its accurate portrayal of the struggles that come with owning and managing a restaurant. It’s impossible to do the experience justice without involving people who’ve actually done it in real life. And, on The Bear, it was Chicago chef Brian Lockwood.
Lockwood was responsible for coaching the cast behind the scenes—including Jeremy Allen White, who played chef Carmy Berzatto—on how to look comfortable in the kitchen in the show’s eponymous restaurant, The Bear. “It resonated with so many people, [because] it was so realistic,” Lockwood told Travel + Leisure. “To the point that a lot of chefs can’t even watch it, because it is too close to home.”
Since the goal was to emulate a working kitchen, the cast needed to learn how to cook like real chefs. “That entailed helping train some of the actors with actual cooking techniques, because they did do the actual cooking,” said Lockwood, who owns restaurants Gingie (which is temporarily closed due to a structural fire) and Midosuji (a love letter to Osaka) in Chicago. “I helped develop dishes and gave Christopher Storer (The Bear’s creator and director) ideas for food.”
Lockwood got the gig to consult on set for seasons three, four, and five after an intense week working with White and culinary director Courtney Storer in Los Angeles, where he trained White on things like, “how to cook a proper steak, baste it, rest it, how to glaze pasta, how to glaze vegetables, how to plate a dish with a spoon, how to pipe something with a pastry bag,” said Lockwood. “It sounds stupid, but [he also learned] how to shell peas quickly.”
In addition to Lockwood’s coaching, White also attended culinary school. “Jeremy was a legit, good cook. He really picked it up very, very fast,” said Lockwood.
The cast also did their own research. “They watched videos of people cooking and studied their manners, making it look authentic,” he said. Matty Matheson, who played handyman Neil Fak and served as a producer and culinary consultant on the show, is a professional chef. “He was always looking at it through the lens of a realistic point of view,” Lockwood said.
He knew he’d done his job when White expressed concern that a steak they were supposed to declare “well done” in one scene was, well, too well done. “We’re getting ready to film the sequence. We’re plating the dish, and he sends it back to the cooks to re-fire,” said Lockwood. “Let’s just say the piece of meat was beyond well done. Even before we started this scene, when he looked at the piece of the meat, he said, ‘This was way too well done. Can we have another piece of meat?’ He was 100 percent right. It took 10 tries. The piece of meat didn’t look like it needed to look. It was a complicated scene. There were dishes flying around. It took a while.”
Part of Lockwood’s job was also to ensure, with a critical eye, that every kitchen shot looked realistic, including the gadgets and appliances in the background. He also often plated the dishes that the actors “prepared” in the kitchen.
“The actors would do a lot of the cooking and plating for full body shots, but if it was a macro shot, I would plate food in front of the camera,” he said. “It’s super nerve-wracking, being in front of 150 people on set. It’s quiet and everyone’s watching. I felt like I grew a lot as a professional throughout the process, having pushed myself and being pushed into something unfamiliar.”
Does he plan to work in Hollywood again? “I would be open in the future,” he said.
For fans of The Bear visiting Chicago, Lockwood recommends the spicy tuna dip at Gingie and the shiitake hand roll at Midosuji. “It’s my favorite,” he said. “Sauteed shiitakes mixed with black pepper [and] onion garlic sauce with a little bit of Szechuan pepper.”
Read the original article on Travel & Leisure
