The first time I heard a stranger say “corner” outside a kitchen, I was taken by surprise, but pretty soon, I lost count. After the FX show “The Bear” began streaming on Hulu in 2022, shouting out phrases that bounce around professional kitchens became something of a national bit.
In Bon Appétit, Sarah York coined the term Line Cook Summer to describe the frenzy over Jeremy Allen White’s character, Carmen Berzatto — a soft, dirtbag type. Even before the Calvin Klein underwear ad, it was perfectly captured in a New Yorker cartoon by Emily Flake. In it, a woman — flushed, happy, naked — lies in bed next to her befuddled husband, who asks, “So … what was all that ‘Yes, Chef’ stuff about?”
The show drove affection toward a big-hearted, dysfunctional kitchen crew at an unlikely moment, two years into the pandemic, after so many investigations into abusive chefs and work environments that the word “toxic” had become not just vague, but inadequate.
The third season begins streaming on Thursday, and the trailer already has nine million views on YouTube. At least three of those were me, trying to wrap my mind around the expanse of the “Bear” effect — I’ve been fascinated by chefs onscreen for decades.
The Swedish Chef, his Muppet eyes hidden under caterpillar brows and floppy toque, tickling the shrimp, was a mildly distressing clown. The fussy, elegant Italian brothers in “Big Night,” played by Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, blurred the dysfunction of a restaurant “family” with their own. Courteney Cox as Monica Geller, the underappreciated perfectionist of “Friends,” cooked her way through the most complex feelings a ’90s sitcom would allow. And Martina Gedeck only seemed impenetrable as the second-best chef in Hamburg in the 2001 German movie “Mostly Martha.”
Jon Favreau was charming in “Chef,” and Bradley Cooper overplayed it in “Burnt,” though something about both those chefs struck me as faintly embarrassing. Most recently, Ralph Fiennes played the part as a cartoonish psychopath in “The Menu.” And speaking of cartoons, animation has delivered some of our most delicious performances, including Bob from “Bob’s Burgers” — a perpetually broke small-town burger chef and a grumpy, but loving dad, hopelessly devoted to his craft.
