A Michelin-starred chef said watching ‘The Bear’ was more stressful than his job

• Chef Joe Garcia knows the pressure that comes with running a Michelin-starred kitchen.
• Still, Garcia told BI that he found his job less stressful than watching “The Bear.”
• He said “The Bear” does a good job of capturing the sacrifice that comes with being a chef.

“The Bear” might be considered a comedy, at least in the eyes of the Emmys and Golden Globes, but most would agree it’s one of TV’s most nerve-racking shows.

Even chef Joe Garcia — who ran the Michelin-starred restaurant Manzke in Los Angeles before taking over as culinary director of the legendary Hotel Bel-Air — finds the hit FX series far more stressful than his work.

“My job at Manzke was to make sure we were performing at a one-Michelin-star level, yet I was going home and watching them make sandwiches on ‘The Bear,’ and that was stressing me out more,” Garcia told Business Insider during a recent interview.

Garcia said there’s still “a lot of truth” to the show, which follows fictional chef Carmy as he tries to transform his brother’s Chicago sandwich shop into a Michelin-starred restaurant.

The series references several real fine-dining establishments, including chef Thomas Keller’s three-star Michelin restaurant, The French Laundry.

One small detail that stood out to Garcia, who spent six years at The French Laundry, was when Carmy wrote “Sense of Urgency” on a piece of tape and placed it in his kitchen. The same words are under every clock in every kitchen at Keller’s restaurants. Garcia had once written his own makeshift “Sense of Urgency” sign on tape, much like Carmy, when The French Laundry was undergoing a renovation.

“It was a little snippet on one of the episodes, and people would normally miss it,” he said. “But because it’s so important to me in my life and career, I noticed it.”

Garcia is also familiar with the pressure of pursuing a Michelin star, as Carmy does in the show’s most recent season.

When Garcia was chef de cuisine at Manzke, the restaurant earned its first star within eight months of opening in March 2022. Garcia joined Hotel Bel-Air after Manzke closed in March due to financial struggles.

“If you talk to a chef and they tell you that it’s not their dream, they’re probably bullshitting you because who doesn’t want it?” Garcia said about getting a Michelin star. “If you get it in eight months — it’s a lot of added pressure. It’s one thing to strive toward a Michelin star and work toward it, and it’s another to try to protect it.”

“But the show itself as a critique, it’s just so overdramatized,” Garcia added. “As someone who actually does this for a living, I know firsthand what it’s like to do that. And I was more stressed going home and watching ‘The Bear’ on my couch than I was at Manzke.”

Garcia said “The Bear” does a good job of capturing the demand and sacrifice of an industry “that’s very difficult to exist in.”

“It’s not always just glamour, right?” he said. “It’s nice to be seen and validated by something that is now part of pop culture and to have that lifestyle be known and understood. I think it’s important for people to know what we go through.”

Garcia also hopes the show might influence people to be kinder and more understanding when talking to restaurant staff.

“Sometimes, people come in, and they ask for the silliest and craziest things, and they expect everything to be handed to them immediately,” Garcia said. “But we’re human, just like everybody else.”