The Bear’s Matty Matheson Only Knows How to Do Fictional Food the Real Way

“I frigging get home, get Uber Eats, and go to bed,” Matty Matheson, a real-life chef and culinary consultant on The Bear, says of his mid-production eating habits, a far cry from the fine dining his show depicts. “We try to eat out as a group every once or twice a week to stay level. You would think that it’s this glamorous thing, but you’re torched by the end of the night.”

He does, however, admit to a newfound appreciation for hot dogs, which he doesn’t dress with ketchup anymore. “Even though I own a burger shop, I’m definitely more of a hot dog person than a burger person now,” Matheson tells Vanity Fair. “Gene & Jude’s in Chicago, I love their hot dogs so much. They have a long line, but it’s worth it. Being in Chicago for three to almost four months a year now, for the last two years, I’ve turned into a big glizzy boy.”

Despite being a renowned Canadian restaurateur, Matheson plays one of the only characters who is not in the kitchen to cook. He stars as handyman Neil Fak, the type of character who wears a suit to the restaurant’s opening but still keeps a screwdriver in his lapel just in case. Matheson is also a coproducer and culinary lead alongside show creator Christopher Storer’s sister Courtney. Together, the pair advise Storer and showrunner Joanna Calo on everything from the build of The Bear’s kitchen to its menu. “We’re building a real restaurant,” Matheson explains. “Designing a kitchen, what do we need? Nice plans, this, that. The kitchen is set up to cook that food too,” he adds. “We could go in there, and, if we really could have fire and gas, we would have the right equipment to execute the menu that we wrote.”

Their dynamic often echoes—and inspires—that of The Bear’s two lead characters. “We’re doing what Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are doing,” Matheson says. He and Courtney will hash out menu ideas in front of Storer and Calo in order to both generate menu items and demonstrate the cadence with which chefs speak to one another. “The synergy needs to be really going,” Matheson says of crafting a menu that reflects its executive chefs. “We really wanted to think about, Where does Sydney come from? What are her technique-driven ideas? What is her heritage—what are the flavors? Carmy, what are his flavors, his lineage, and culinary sense? And how do you take those ideas and who they are and create a culinary voice for each of those characters?”