Since the 1960s, the drama of cooking has provided a basis for TV light entertainment, from Fanny Cradock through to Bake Off via The Galloping Gourmet, MasterChef and countless other oven-ready shows. But what it hasn’t done, at least until recently, is produce an actual drama series.
So you wait a lifetime for a restaurant-kitchen-based television drama series, and then, like the proverbial London bus, two arrive almost simultaneously. Technically speaking, the first was Disney+’s Chicago-based The Bear, starring Jeremy Allen White as Carman “Carmy” Berzatto, an award-winning haute-cuisine chef who takes over his dead brother’s neighbourhood sandwich bar.
