In addition to star Jeremy Allen White's months of training at restaurants, including Santa Monica's Pasjoli, much of the realism so many have attributed to TV's "The Bear" is due to the culinary supervision of chefs Courtney Storer and Matty Matheson, who also played handyman Neil Fak on the show. The culinary producers devised on-camera dishes for the FX on Hulu series and also served as inspiration and sounding boards within the writers room.
For Storer, the onscreen depiction of the Italian beef would need to be perfect. The former Jon & Vinny's chef grew up eating the sandwich with Christopher Storer, her brother and the show's creator. It's an item that contains memories of celebrations, of game days, of family get-togethers. As a child, years before taking her first kitchen job at Sonny's Express in Park Ridge, Illinois, she would order a beef there and break it into pieces to make it last throughout the day. For years after moving to Los Angeles, she questioned whether she should open a beef shop herself — and whether Angelenos would embrace or even understand it if she tried.
Then came "The Bear," her brother's longtime labor of love, and a time for her beloved beef to shine. For some, it would be their first introduction to one of Chicago's greatest culinary exports.
