Michelin-Star Chef Rates Every Fine Dining Scene From 'The Bear' | How Real Is It? | Insider

Carmen: No, T. The cook is off. Tina: What's wrong chef?

The cook's off! Refire! Yes, 100% correct.

You are always taught, never let your mistakes leave the kitchen ever. Hello, I'm Chef Paul Liebrandt, and I was the chef-owner of restaurant Corton and two Michelin stars in New York City. I've been a chef and restaurateur for over 25 years.

I'm back to look at fine dining scenes from "The Bear" and judge how real they are. Sydney: Oh I'm sorry. Carmen: Stock's boiled.

Sydney: Yes. It's too cloudy. Sydney: Yes.

The heat was too high. Sydney: I know. You didn't skimp properly.

Sydney: I put it lower. You cannot add. The turning up of the heat on the beef stock happened to me many times.

Sabotage. It happens all the time when you're young, and you have a big brigade of chefs, and it's always the small things that you don't check, i. e.

you're busy in service, someone runs around, turns your oven off just to mess around with people. It happens. I would give a good solid 8 out of 10.

It is very realistic. You left the preorder option open. 255 beef sandwiches due up in eight minutes.

Everything on the grill. Fire everything right f---ing now! So there's a couple things that stood out for me in that clip.

It's No. 1, great business. A lot of orders, which is what every restaurant needs and wants.

So that's great. Maybe a little touch disorganized. So leave the preorder option open, OK.

So would I have done the same as Carmy in that situation? OK, one thing, with all those orders coming in, do you actually have enough food to fulfill all those orders? If you do have all that food, I would've taken block by block of orders.

Not everything at once. Because that's, that's ridiculous. The customers will get their order.

It might take a little longer to get to them, but you have to deliver what is promised. Carmen: Shut the f--- up! Carmen: Holy f---ing shit!

What, she stabbed him? Wow, really? OK.

I've seen someone's hand get cut off. I've seen it all. So it's real.

Kitchens are dangerous. You have razor-sharp knives, boiling water, deep-frying oil, flames. So your situational awareness is critical.

You move backwards, and somebody has a knife that they're not holding blade-down, you go into a knife. So regardless of whether it was meant or not meant, you should have more situational awareness. Get the f--- off!

Thank you. I quit is what's going on. Carmen: You quit?

So the quitting part, 100%. That's real. That happens every single day.

People can be pushed to a certain point, and they go, I'm out. And I'll be honest though, I have done that before when I was younger. When I knew how to cook, didn't know how to manage, oh I've done that.

Get the f--- out of here. I've done that. Oh yes more than once.

And I've had sous-chefs go, "That's it, I quit. " You want to calm it down and keep everybody's focus on the task that's in front of them to get through it in the right way. And then you do an action report after.

What went wrong? And then if people need to be fired, you do it afterwards. Not during.

Because you need everybody's hands. I'm going to have to give it a solid 4 out of 10. Sorry guys.

The context is important about the chaos, but the overall actions of the chef were, in my opinion, overexaggerated. Tenderloin. You know what a lot of restaurants suck at?

Using the home to test dishes for the new restaurant. Collaborative, bouncing ideas. Yes, absolutely, 100%.

For me personally, when I ideate with the team, I don't generally like to do it in the kitchen, I'll be honest. I take the gladiator, so to speak, out of the arena and think in a different setting, which gets your mind to think very differently. So just in context, Jeremy and Ayo did actually work together in preparation for these parts at Institute of Culinary Education to I suppose foster that chef/sous-chef relationship, which was obviously very well done here.

Carmen: All right. Sydney: All right. That's salt.

You marinated it too long. It's OK though. I'll say it in a very polite British way.

To be tasting your own food from your own ideation, with your own recipes, and then having to spit your own food out, I would question, do you know what you're doing? You should be a little bit more focused than that. So I would rate this clip 7 out of 10.

I like the context. It's at home. They're working on their first collaborative menu together.

The spitting out of the food, maybe not quite so realistic. Chef, I'm Marcus Brooks. I'm from - I know, I'm Luca.

Pastry, start at 5 a. m. Your section's at the end of the bench.

So in the context of the scene with Marcus going to Copenhagen to learn from this pastry chef here, it is very common to send staff. I have many times to other contemporaries and people that you respect to gain experience and knowledge for themselves. A hundred percent.

Yes, it is very common to start at 5 a. m. in the kitchen.

There's a lot of work to be done. If you're doing bread, that takes time, fermentation. Luca: So that's 6 o'clock.

That's where it's facing, yes? Yes, chef. No.

Again, chef. I very much enjoyed watching this clip, very much so. It shows the discipline, the elegance, the mentorship.

Regarding the positioning of the plating, 100%, you need symmetry on a dish. Pastry is about, is the final, the final chapter to a meal. So it's very important to make sure that you have consistency.

And if one item of the dish is at 6, the other item should be at 9, if that's the way the dish is built. A hundred percent correct, yes. Training-wise, you tend to find, as you probably noticed in the clip here, that pastry chefs are a little more technical, more technique-driven with their training.

Savory chefs, yes, very technical, but pastry is more technical measurements. To make gelee. Thank you, Chef.

And give me two ladles of that into there and just bloom the gelatin. So Luca's obviously showing Marcus the building blocks of how to make a gelee. A hundred percent correct in the technique there.

So a gelee is a basically a gelatin that's used to set cold or hot. The context of how he's teaching with regards to the recipe being given, 100% correct. You would obviously oversee the development of said recipe.

The recipe is a guide. It's not the be-all and end-all. Luca: Like that.

So excellent demonstration on the quenelle. The purpose of doing a quenelle is purely to shape. It doesn't have to be an ice cream or a sorbet, but it's purposely just to shape whatever you are wanting to place on the plate.

You rub to a little bit of heat on the back of the spoon and then release the quenelle, which should be a perfect smooth shape of the spoon, depending on the size of the spoon. Excellent technique. So the dessert that Marcus makes at the end, which is I'm assuming his own recipe that he's created, looked fantastic.

Obviously, taking a lot of influence with the aesthetic of how to build the dessert from Luca. You know, what makes a fine dining dessert? It doesn't.

There isn't exactly a rule of thumb. It's more to do with the technique and the balance of flavor, texture, color is really what we're talking about that makes what he's doing here different from a slice of apple pie. I like this one very much.

I'm going to go big on this one. I'm giving it 100%. Ten out of 10.

I thought this clip was extremely realistic, elegant, and very, very true with how you build your technique, your palate, and your mind through mentor, pupil. All the servers take temperatures of the room. They communicate.

Bogeys on 19, walk everything fast. What stood out for me with that clip is obviously it's a, you know, extremely by the second precision in the front of house with everything done exactly the same as you would expect for the back of house. So in this scene, Richie is staging.

Staging, or trailing, is basically gaining experience by looking through the window, so to speak, into somebody else's operation. So kind of like an intern, right? Where you're not getting paid, you're helping, and you're gaining the experience.

22 doesn't like people to speak to them. How do you know that? Know what?

About the people eating? We have a designated staff member that researches each guest. So yes, actually at Corton is 100% correct.

We would do the same thing. We would research the guest before they come in. We would actually send, prior to the reservation, a little form with obviously allergies, anything that can't be eaten, but also knowing where they're coming from.

Therefore, if you come from Japan, if you come from France, you like your shellfish, for example, cooked differently. So we would then curtail if we had a shellfish dish on the menu for that evening, depending on the guest, a little more cooked, a little less cooked. It's the details that really matter.

Chef. Manager: Point on two by four. Pequod's deep-dish.

Patron: No, oh you did not hear me say that. Taking somebody else's dish and presenting it in a artful way. Yes, I have.

More than once to guests, foreign guests, from coming outside of America. I remember very well one guest wanted to have a black-and-white cookie, which is a very New York-centric cookie, if you've been here. So we obviously organized that, which was quite nice.

And we obviously knew ahead of time. We did not eavesdrop, but the touch and the thoughtfulness, excellent. I would rate this clip 7 out of 10.

It is realistic as far as the numbering and the organization of the kitchen. I wish everybody would have a little more soulfulness and a smile in what they're doing. Being that you are hospitality, you're supposed to smile and enjoy.

Very, you know, Rocky-esque montage of memories of all the training and working in different kitchens with a lot of chefs that I know very well and are all dear friends. So in the first scene, Chef Daniel Boulud, fantastic chef, know him dearly, and that was a great scene obviously about how to shape and turn a vegetable. We saw with René from Noma in Copenhagen there, you know, utilizing the local produce, which is the concept of Noma, which is a three-Michelin-star restaurant.

Chefs that I have had the, I guess, privilege to go and work with in my past, Pierre Gagnaire in Paris, three-star. Marco Pierre White in London, three-star. Raymond Blanc of Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, two-star.

And you know, a lot of inspiration there, a lot. So, I do the same thing, think back. David: What the f--- is this s---?

We already have a dish with dill in it. You knew that right? Yes, chef.

Never repeat ingredients. - The dill scene there that he is being reprimanded for repeating dill. It really depends on your philosophy.

There is the rule that in the course of a menu, you should not repeat a single ingredient. I personally, I suppose I'm in the middle of both ways. You could do both.

Depends on the ingredient. If you do a black truffle menu, you put black truffles on every dish. So you are repeating, but it depends on how you do it.

David: That's how you do better. So the idea of subtraction is 100% correct. Generally speaking, "less is more" is always the rule of thumb.

If you look at something like sushi, where you have rice, fish, and then a seasoning. Simple, but it speaks about the ingredient and the technique shown. And generally speaking, it's much harder when there's less on the plate.

You have to be better. Yes, you do label ingredients exactly as shown here, with date, time, what the ingredient is. It's very important to be very organized.

You get deliveries. You want to make sure that you obviously don't mix up a new delivery with an old delivery. So yeah, 100%.

I would rate this scene a great 8 out of 10. I thought it was very realistic, thoughtful, and very true for all of us that can think about past life experiences. Hmm, what's this?

Carmen: Non-negotiables. That's how we do this correctly. That's how restaurants of the highest caliber operate.

The term non-negotiables might be a little strong. You have standards and principles, I think, is more the right way that you would approach this. So that's kind of what he's saying in a more younger way.

We've all done it. We'll say it, but I've never stood there and went, "These are my non-negotiables. " I'm like, what?

Like, just like, what's the plan here? Let's lay it out and be straight to the point. You know, like, that's really what this is about.

Sydney: Hi. Carmen: What's up? What is this?

It's uh, R and D? You redid everything. So the R and D term does not mean redo a dish.

It means research and development of the dishes and the service and the staffing and who's doing what. And it is very common, and you have to do it, yes. Carmen: I'm going to change it every day.

The cavatelli or the raviolo? Everything. We're going to change everything every day?

Yes. Well, I think it's very admirable that he wants to change the entire menu every single day. So the idea here obviously of changing the menu every day is it is tried by some restaurants, obviously, around the world.

You have to think about the style of the menu. So with regards to a tasting menu and an a la carte menu, you have differences of how you approach the menu. You're not going to go back every day and do a tasting menu, because it's a lot of food to eat.

If you're a good customer, you want to go back because they have a signature dish that you want to repeat. So if you change the menu every day, you wouldn't be able to do that, which would upset your customers. So it's really a balance.

Who's they? The Docusign in your inbox. See that?

No, saying what? Carmen: It's a partnership agreement. And what does that say?

How much of this place you're going to own. Giving partnership to the sous-chef there and to other members of the staff is obviously a very, very big step and a very generous step on his part, which obviously engages very much more so. So they're not employees, they're owners, which has a very big way of making them think different.

So I would rate this 7 out of 10. If I'm talking to my team about becoming partners with me in my business, I wouldn't casually throw out over R-and-D-ing a couple of dishes and talking about what pasta I'm going to change every single day. Those are very big steps.

Manager: Doors! Staff: Doors! So the term "doors" refers to people moving in and out.

Like I said before in a previous clip, situational awareness. Somebody's moving with plates of food, don't be standing in front of them, watch what's going on. Somebody coming with a tray of glasses or a hot pan, doors.

Doors means backs, means get out the way. Sydney: Perfect. Thank you, Chef Tina.

No, T, refire please. Everybody take your f---ing time. No T, do not refire.

The cook's off. Refire! So in regards to the recooking of the dishes, yes, 100% correct.

You are always taught, never let your mistakes leave the kitchen, ever. The other part of that is the real-life part. Can you afford to do it?

And that was a piece of Wagyu, which is very expensive. But yes, it does happen. Yes, it's important to make sure that your standards and your principles are never undermined by sending something that you know should not come up.

I have a bill in my hands for $11,268 for butter. We cannot f---ing keep this up. I got to say it's like it's bulls--- .

If you did that, you'd close in like, you know, one week. The butter that they're using there, the idea is based off Animal Farm butter, which is from a wonderful farmer up in Vermont. So in regards to spending $11,000 on butter, OK, there's the promise of what you want to do, and then there's the reality of what you want to do.

If you go in and spent $11,000 on butter in a restaurant of that size, serving a smaller number of people like that, you would close in one week. So it sounds great, but be realistic is all I'm saying. Richie: The guy says he doesn't like mushrooms.

No it doesn't f---ing matter. He hates mushrooms. If he doesn't like the mushrooms, he doesn't have to eat the mushrooms.

It's not about you, it's about the f---ing customer! Get out of here, Richie. I'm going to send you the f--- home!

In regards to the mushroom incident in the dish, is it right or wrong to abide by a customer's wishes? It's a hard one, depending on which platform you're standing on and which way you're looking. When you're a young chef, you're starting out, and I was exactly the same way.

My vision, my food, da da da. But in reality, you do that once, customer walks out, leaves a bad review, other people stop coming, and then you go, you know what, I'll change the dish, I'll tweak it. So yeah, you abide by the customer's wishes in a setting like this.

And you certainly don't get into a fistfight with your partner in the middle of service over a mushroom. We're there to present a dream, not fight each other. You can see just once you do an opening, you're like this.

People drop stuff, people get angry. The communication takes time to develop. So with regards to how fast you should or shouldn't be in the kitchen, once you get to a certain level, you don't go as fast, but you are more accurate in what you do.

I'm very impressed, Sydney, that she has matured from the previous season and she is the one, the voice of calm, the voice of focus, which is what she's meant to do. I would rate this, I would say 8 out 10. Fighting each other in the middle of the kitchen, probably it happens, but you know, you try to make sure that it doesn't happen.

But otherwise, I think yeah, pretty realistic. We're going to start by showing you how to remove the wishbone. You can feel that wishbone in there?

So it's on both sides. Fantastic in every way in this clip. Thomas Keller is the chef-owner of the French Laundry, where this is filmed at this scene and Per Se in New York and Bouchon and many other beautiful restaurants.

A very, very, very wise and gifted and dear friend of mine. He was in our movie and you know, he did the back flap of my book. And so the importance I think of the clip here is the essence of which Thomas is trying to teach Carmy that cooking is lots of little things done well.

It's not one big thing. It's lots of little dots that all join up to make one bigger thing. To me, it's such a profound profession, because we get to really be part of people's lives here today because of those who came before us.

So this is your first day. Wisdom from Thomas Keller. He's one of those chefs that we younger chefs look to as like, yeah, like that's the model of like what we all think you should be.

When I first came here years ago, I went to French Laundry, and Thomas and I had breakfast together in the garden, and I asked him, how are you you? Like, what, give me not a secret, but give me some life advice. And he was very much similar to this, and it stayed with me.

So the advice that I would give in the similar situation, that I have given to many of my younger teammates, is very much the same thing of understand why we do what we do. Understand the bigger implications of why are you doing what you're doing. I'm going to rate this 11 out of 10.

It's that meaningful. And as a chef, the meaningfulness of what Thomas is teaching here goes far beyond this TV series and far beyond what we're all doing here. Hey everybody, this is Chef Sydney.

Nobody just opens a restaurant and that's it forever. Everybody goes through opening, closing. I know the reality of that.

We all do. So the concept of having a funeral dinner for closing of your restaurant maybe is not quite exactly realistic. And anyways, it should be, it should be like going to a wake.

It should be joyous and a celebration of what you have achieved. And the next chapter that you're moving on to. The thought process that you go through when you get reviewed by publications, by people.

Yeah, it's very much like that. You're sort of 24/7 thinking about it. I mean, it's an initial presentation that you're doing to the world.

My restaurant, me, this is who I am. There are a lot of emotions involved. The breaking up of his girlfriend to do it.

I've done the exactly the same thing more than once. It's all or nothing. So I empathize completely, yes.

You gave me ulcers and panic attacks. You were an OK chef when you started with me. And you left an excellent chef.

So you're welcome. I've been that guy. I've been in both.

I've been Carmy. I didn't have the ulcers, but the anxiety and the stress, absolutely. And I'm in a position now where I'm, I suppose, the other side, where I give the advice that his old chef gave.

And he's correct. He came in a boy, and he left a man. And it's very true with what he says.

You are better. So was it worth it? I think so.

It's a tough, tough business to be in, and not everybody makes it. And some people get very emotional. Others embrace it.

So it really depends on how you approach it and who the individual is. And I think what I've learnt over the years, people don't remember the food. Sorry.

It's the people that they remember. I would agree exactly with what Olivia Coleman was saying here, that it is about the company and the presence that you're in, not so much the actual part of the food, yes. Memories come and go.

We might forget exactly what the dish looked like, but we can remember the company that we're in and the feelings and emotions that we had in that company. That to me is the most important thing, yes. Very realistic with the quotes on the wall.

You got to think of it like a Roman legion with the banner that you march behind. In our kitchen, we would always have "Fokus," with a K. Concentrate all your thoughts and feelings on the task at hand.

And it's more of a mantra, I suppose you could say, but it's very correct. I would rate this a 9 out of 10. Everybody goes through opening, closing.

My restaurant closed. We will be opening again in New York City. So be ready.

My favorite scene from "The Bear" is the Thomas Keller episode. The sentiment, the advice to Carmy, the wisdom, and the impactfulness that that has in here and in here, to me, is far more than anything else that you could actually watch or learn. If you enjoyed this, please click on the next clip to enjoy more fine dining scenes from movies and TV.