Hudson Valley restaurateurs talk Hulu's 'The Bear': The spot-on, the hard to watch

The Emmy awards are upon us (they'll broadcast on ABC, Sept. 15) — and that means it's time to binge watch your favorite shows and catch up. If you care about the restaurant business, it also means thinking (and talking!) about Hulu's critically acclaimed show, "The Bear."

What's true about the show? And, more importantly, does it really hold muster with what goes on behind the scenes in restaurant kitchens?

According to many Westchester and Rockland restaurant owners and chefs the answer, from those who watch it, is a resounding yes.

Christina Drake Safarowic, who owns Freddy's in Pleasantville with her husband (and chef) Matt Safarowic, said she recently had this conversation with two other restaurateurs over dinner. "The most realistic thing on 'The Bear' is the Michelin chef leaving work after a 12-plus-hour day, going home to an empty fridge and making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or mac and cheese for dinner," she said.

What else is true? "The cursing, the fighting, the stress, the camaraderie, the family!"

And, oh yeah, that "Yes, Chef" verbiage that's ever-present in the show, which has become part of our lexicon.

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Real life in a comedy?

Nearly all of it is accurate, said 25-year restaurant veteran Ellen Sledge, owner of Penny Lick Ice Cream with locations in Hastings, Mamaroneck and Ossining. And for that reason, she said the show is both great -— and hard to watch.

Chef Kerri Horgan who owns The Rail Trail Cafe & Mercantile in Blauvelt, is one of those who takes it in spurts as the mere sound of the ticket machine dinging — fast — as orders roll in, as it does in Season One, was enough to give her anxiety. "You do hear it in your sleep sometimes," she said.

It's also why she hasn't (yet) finished the series. In many ways, she admitted, it's just too real when she's living it every day. "Kitchens are always chaotic environments," she said. "There's good chaos and there's bad chaos and I've been in both."

"FX calls it a comedy," said Sledge. "But it's really not. Or at least it's too close to our own situations for us to find it funny."

'Bear' of a backstory

The show, for those who haven't yet seen it, revolves around Carmy Berzatto, an award-winning chef with a Michelin-starred restaurant background who returns to his hometown of Chicago to manage the kitchen at his deceased brother's sandwich shop. Seasons One and Two have him dealing with his brother's unresolved debts, a rundown kitchen and a dysfunctional staff while simultaneously dealing with his own pain and family trauma.

As the series progresses, it centers on Berzatto's journey to transform the place into a fine dining restaurant, something that's more of a focus in Season Three.

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So far "The Bear", which has been renewed for a fourth season, has won numerous awards including 10 Primetime Emmy Awards and four Golden Globes including acting awards for Jeremy Allen White, who plays Chef Berzatto; Ebon Moss-Bachrach who plays the de facto restaurant manager and Ayo Edebiri, the sous-chef.

The show has also received acclaim for its writing, directing and production along with its examination of the psychological development of the characters particularly around the topics of suicide, family and workplace mistreatment and morale.

Breaking down 'The Bear'

Chef Peter X. Kelly, owner of X2O Xaviars on the Hudson in Yonkers and culinary director at The Abbey Inn in Peekskill, has watched every episode and believes the series gives an accurate depiction of the struggles associated with creating a world class fine dining restaurant. "From creating compelling dishes to training staff, to the operational mishaps, financial woes and family struggles it's all very well portrayed," he said.

"As someone from a rather large, diverse and opinionated family," Kelly continued, "I was amazed to watch the familial relationships both grow and diminish as the series developed."

He's also impressed with how the show has represented the challenges of producing exacting meals with the transition from sandwich shop to haute cuisine. "The writers and producers along with their consultants including [NYC restaurateur] Will Guidera have done an extraordinary job depicting life in the upper echelons of fine dining and what it takes not only to get there but perhaps more importantly the foundation needed to stay there," he said.

The camaraderie presented in the series is another real life aspect many in the industry praise. "What I've learned from the show, and what I've found in my own kitchen, is to find strength in the crew that you have instead of focusing on their weaknesses," said Horgan.

What she also finds fun (and funny) is that many of her staff are now calling each other characters from the show. "They'll say this one is definitely Sugar or this one is Cousin," she said. "And I love that because it means they're into the restaurant life."

More to the story

The story is as much about workplace dynamics and starting a business as it is about family, another topic that hits home for restaurant owners as many are funded by friends and family.

"You would think it makes for a supportive atmosphere, but it really just amps up the pressure — the fear of failure, the desperate hope of success," said Sledge. "So, in Season Three, where the uncle starts to crush under outside financial pressure while carrying the weight of the restaurant is really common."

Similarly, she added, many restaurants fail so quickly and spectacularly because they aren't mindful of their costs, which is part of the show's recurring theme. "Restaurants are a careful calculation of how many seats and tables can be turned how many times a night for how much minimum projected gross revenues," said Sledge. "But if you don't realize you're spending five times what you should be on something as simple as butter, no amount of turning tables will save you."

It's not just the cost of running a restaurant but also building and maintaining it — along with the myriad frustrations, delays and health inspection demands and failures portrayed in Season Two when a build-out is involved — that experts agree was spot-on and again, hard to watch. It was so parallel (and painful) to the experiences Sledge was going through at the time with her Mamaroneck store that she only watched about 40% of that season.

And though the Neil Fak handyman character played by Matty Matheson (a professional chef by the way), comes across as comic relief, Sledge said he's real. "Any restaurateur, any small business owner in any industry, knows him," she said. "He will always come when you call. He will chat a lot. He will get things wrong, but also get things right. You rely on him for everything you don't know how to do, even if you are pretty sure he doesn't know how to do it either. He always has duct tape. Your freezer is still leaking."

On the plus side, "The Bear" has gotten people interested in the plight of these fictional (though very accurately portrayed) characters and has lifted the curtain on the intensity behind the ins and outs of what it takes to run a successful dining establishment.

And that, say those in the know, is a good thing.

"The most important thing," summed up Chef Tony Scotto, owner of DPNB Pasta & Provisions in Nyack, "Is that if a new generation of people are excited and talking about the restaurant industry it's a win for everyone."

Jeanne Muchnick covers food and dining. Click here for her most recent articles and follow her latest dining adventures on Instagram @jeannemuchnick or via the lohudfood newsletter .

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Hudson Valley restaurateurs talk Hulu's 'The Bear': The spot-on, the hard to watch