A guide to all the real-life chefs who appear in ‘The Bear’ Season 3

This article contains spoilers from Season Three of “The Bear.”

“The Bear” is growling once again with its distinctive call: “Yes, chef!”

On June 27, all 10 episodes of the hotly anticipated third season of the award-winning Hulu/FX dramedy were made available for streaming, resulting in a weekend full of on-screen kitchen chaos and culinary creativity for its legions of fans.

While watching Carmy, Sydney, Sugar and the rest of the crew interact, you may have seen a few famous faces this go-round. In addition to established actors like Olivia Coleman, Will Poulter, Jamie Lee Curtis and even a blink-and-you-miss-it Bradley Cooper, there are serious stars of the culinary world, too.

Christina Tosi, chef and founder of Milk Bar, appeared in Season Three’s finale with a slew of other famous chefs during a “funeral dinner” for Ever, a restaurant that plays a big part in the show’s second and third seasons. Tosi tells TODAY.com that being invited on set for the finale was both “incredibly humbling and super cool.”

“Getting to share space and conversation with some of my favorite culinary talents and peers amongst the brilliant cast, merging our real lives with the beloved fictional storyline was a dream,” Tosi says. “This rule breaking and risk taking vision and execution is one of the secret ingredients to Chris Storer and his killer crew and their breakaway success with ‘The Bear.’”

Along with Tosi — and cast member and real-life chef Matty Matheson, who plays Neil Fak — here are all the culinary greats that appear in the show’s latest season.

Daniel Boulud

In Season Three’s opening, nonlinear episode “Tomorrow,” we find Carmy earlier in his career, cutting his teeth in the kitchens of multiple iconic real-life restaurants. This includes Daniel, Boulud’s eponymous French Park Avenue restaurant which focuses on local seafood, vegetables and meats with two Michelin stars. In one scene, Boulud teaches Carmy how to craft a dish involving scallops wrapped in spinach.

Dave Beran

Also appearing in Episode One is Beran, the former executive chef of Next, a high-concept Michelin star honoree. The Chicago hotspot changes its restaurant style every few months, which mirrors Carmy’s Season Three culinary philosophy. Beran now runs his own restaurant, Santa Monica bistro Pasjoli, which former Emmy-winner Ayo Edebiri (Sydney) said she trained at prior to filming Season One during her TODAY cover interview.

A James Beard Award winner, Beran appears with Carmy and Luca (Poulter) in the fictional restaurant Ever, which serves as the setting for many pivotal scenes this season. Owned by chef Andrea Terry (Coleman) on the show, in reality, Ever is a real eatery owned by Michelin-starred chef Curtis Duffy and Michael Muser.

Adam Shapiro

Shapiro, who keeps his name in the show, plays a major part of Andrea’s team, sticking by her side. Although Shapiro is mainly an actor, writer, and director who has nearly 100 credits to his name on shows like “The Bear,” “Never Have I Ever” and more, he does have a culinary claim to fame.

During the pandemic, Shapiro and wife and fellow actor Katie Lowes launched Shappy Pretzel Co. which quickly became a popular commodity. The story goes that the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania native missed his hometown’s soft pretzels, so he perfected a recipe at home and decided to sell it to the masses. The rest is history.

René Redzepi

Although Noma, Redzepi’s three-time Michelin-starred restaurant, has closed its doors to the public, the Copenhagen restaurant itself still makes an appearance in Season Two during the Marcus-focused episode, “Honeydew.” In Season Three, we see Redzepi in the flesh in “Tomorrow” — though he doesn’t speak, the Danish chef stares at a bulletin board full of pictures and nods at Carmy.

Dario Monni

Monni, chef and owner of Tortello, an Italian restaurant in Chicago, is known for his hand-made pasta. He makes a brief appearance in Episode Two, “Next,” during a montage of restaurant workers, suppliers and more, prepping in his kitchen and waving directly to the camera.

Joyce Chiu

Also appearing in “Next” is Chiu, owner of Chinese bakery Chiu Quon. In her Chicago restaurant’s portion of the montage, we see dumplings being prepared before Chiu receives a tray of baked goods, smiling directly at the camera.

Jonathan Zaragoza

In “Next,” we also see Chicago spot Birreria Zaragoza, where owner and chef Zaragoza is preparing tortillas and meat. This spot in particular is actually a favorite of “The Bear” cast — both Jeremy Allen White (Carmy) and Matheson have patronized the Bib Gourmand recipient.

Christopher Zucchero

Zucchero owns Mr. Beef, the real-life Italian beef shop that inspired the show. In Season One, he played Chi-Chi, who appeared in three episodes. Skipping the show’s sophomore season, Chi-Chi returns for four episodes in Season Three, starting with “Next,” supplying the Bear restaurant with meat and produce and eventually donning an apron to help Ebraheim run the to-go sandwich window.

Paulie James

James, a founder of the popular Los Angeles sandwich shop Uncle Paulie’s Deli, appears in two episodes in Season Three, starting with Episode Six. James plays Chuckie, Chi-Chi’s expletive-slinging right-hand man. In this episode, titled “Napkins,” Chi-Chi and Chuckie help out Ebraheim at the to-go sandwich window.

“F— silverware,” Chuckie says after wrapping one single napkin around a foil-wrapped Italian beef sandwich and putting it in a bag.

Thomas Keller

Season Three’s 10th episode “Forever” has a laundry list of chef cameos, so it makes sense the first one involves Carmy’s first day at the iconic French Laundry. Keller is the only American chef to have been awarded simultaneous three-star Michelin ratings for two different restaurants — Per Se and the French Laundry — the latter of which has been open since 1978 and owned by Keller since 1994. In a particularly poignant scene, the James Beard Award winner assists Carmy in preparing a family meal for his coworkers.

While teaching him how to accurately remove a wishbone from a chicken, Keller dispenses life advice like a warm hug.

Grant Achatz

Achatz, owner of iconic Chicago spot Alinea, also makes an appearance in the final episode of Season Three. Achatz attends the funeral dinner for the fictional Ever restaurant, where Luca annoys the James Beard honoree with many questions about the dishes served at the three-Michelin-starred restaurant in a comedic exchange.

Wylie DuFresne

DuFresne appears in the 10th episode as a supporter of Carmy’s season-long mission to quit cigarettes. DuFresne is a leader in the molecular gastronomy movement and known for his now-shuttered Manhattan restaurants Alder and WD~50, as well as Du’s Donuts & Coffee. He now owns Stretch Pizza in New York City.

Christina Tosi

Frequent TODAY guest Tosi was already a favorite of at least one of “The Bear” cast members before she even appeared on the show. In the season’s final episode, Tosi is seated at the same table as Carmy and Sydney in a pivotal scene where she talks about first dishes and healthy workplaces to a closely listening group of culinary greats.

“Dare I say the greatest mistake is working for a bad boss,” she says, inspiring a flashback in both of our leads. Tosi may have inspired a plot point in Season Four, but we’re going to have to wait and see on that one.

Anna Posey

Posey, pastry chef and co-owner of Elske, a Chicago restaurant, is also seated at the table, where she tells a story about how the first dessert she ever served was not-so-great. “Now my desserts are so scaled back and I think this dessert had like 12 elements on it,” she says in the episode. Edebiri also once shared she trained in Posey’s kitchen.

Malcolm Livingston II

Livingston, founder of August Novelties, is also seated at the funeral dinner table. As a young pastry chef, he trained at Noma; he is the inspiration for the character Marcus. In the final episode, Livingston shares an anecdote about a great boss who shared his dessert creation on Twitter, calling it “innovation.”

Genie Kwon

Kwon is the co-owner of Kasama in Chicago, a Filipino restaurant and bakery with a Michelin star. During the funeral dinner at Ever, she talks about imposter syndrome, something all of our most skilled and beloved characters on “The Bear” deal with in just about every episode.

Kevin Boehm

Boehm isn’t a chef, but as co-owner of Boka Restaurant Group, which has restaurants in Chicago and Los Angeles, he has plenty of skin in the culinary game. In the final episode, Carmy and Boehm chat about the stress of running a restaurant.

Rosio Sanchez

Sanchez is another chef seated at the funeral dinner table, sharing an anecdote about how much she loves to cook. She used to be the head pastry chef at Noma until she left to open a taco stand called Hija de Sanchez, which now has four locations in Denmark. She also has a high-end Mexican restaurant called Restaurant Sanchez, located in Copenhagen.

Will Guidara

Guidara is a co-producer of “The Bear” as well as an established restaurateur, formerly co-owning the Make It Nice hospitality group, which owns and operates Eleven Madison Park, NoMad New York, Made Nice and several other spots (he was bought out in 2019). In the season finale, Guidara speaks about the “chaos” of the restaurant industry. Sound familiar?

This article was originally published on TODAY.com