All Real-Life Chefs Who Had a Cameo in 'The Bear'

Hulu’s The Bear isn’t just about mastering culinary skills — it’s about learning from the best.

After kicking it off with Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy first trying to turn his brother’s diner into an haute cuisine restaurant, the show moved on to higher levels when Carmy’s team was suddenly joined by several real-life — and pretty prominent — chefs.

In fact, there were so many of them in last year’s season 3 that it was easy to get lost while trying to understand who is who. However, some eagle-eyed fans could have caught a glimpse of Bradley Cooper’s brief cameo — he’s also something of a chef himself.

Daniel Boulud

The Bear’s season 3 premiere episode features a flashback of Carmy at the time of his work in a fashionable restaurant in New York City.

There, he’s seen being trained by Boulud in the latter’s French restaurant called Daniel.

“The experience was as raw and real as it gets. Jeremy Allen White’s incredible talent shines through as he dives in with a perfect blend of fearlessness and confidence. A truly remarkable experience! Cooking with Jeremy was like cooking with my young chefs. He is a great cook, fast learner, and extremely focused”, Boulud shared in a Facebook post soon after The Bear’s season 3 release.

Dave Beran

Beran is also featured in the third season’s first episode and is seen working with Carmy at Chef Terry’s Ever.

In real life, Beran owns the French restaurant Pasjoli located in Santa Monica.

“It's not a cooking show; it's a show that happens to be framed around food and has kitchen aspects to it, but it's much deeper of a show than that. The thought was, 'If we have an opportunity to actually offer some influence in the show based around the culinary world, then we can actually make it more proper”, Beran revealed during a conversation on the Food&Wine podcast recently.

Thomas Keller

Keller appears in the season’s finale in a flashback which dates to Carmy’s time at the former’s California restaurant the French Laundry.

In the scene, Keller is seen teaching Carmy how to remove the wishbone for preparing a roast chicken.

Ever’s Last Dinner Features a Ton of Chef Celebrities

The scene where Chef Terry’s Ever hosts its last ever dinner before closing features a nearly dozen famous chefs, including Grant Achtaz (Alinea), Wylie Dufresne (wd~50, Stretch Pizza), Christina Tosi (Milk Bar), Malcolm Livingston II (Noma), Kevin Boehm (Boka Restaurant Group), Will Guidara (former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park), Anna Posey (Elske), Genie Kwon (Kasama) and Rosio Sanchez (former pastry chef at Noma).

Paulie James

The owner of the popular Los Angeles eatery Uncle Paulie’s Deli, Paulie James first appears in The Bear’s season 3 episode 7 and portrays a character who comes to Carmy’s rescue and helps run The Bear’s sandwich window.

René Redzepi

Redzepi also shows up in one of the third season’s flashbacks where Carmy travels to Copenhagen to work in Redzepi’s Noma.

In fact, the restaurant’s social media quickly shared an update after the filming wrapped, revealing that the team taught Allen White “how to properly cut a nice piece of squid”.

Bradley Cooper

Even though it wasn’t one of obvious things in the season, Bradley Cooper’s chef role in a 2015 movie Burnt also made it to The Bear — the actor’s picture is there among those who collaborated with Chef Terry, hanging on Ever’s wall.

In Burnt, Cooper portrayed a character similar to Allen White’s Carmy, hot-tempered chef Adam Jones who strives for a Michelin star.

Apart from that, Cooper is some kind of a cook himself: the actor recently teamed up with Danny DiGiampietro from Angelo's Pizzeria in South Philadelphia to create a cheesesteak food truck called "Danny & Coop's Cheesesteaks”.