Sophia Michaels
In episode three of “The Bear” season two, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) travels throughout Chicago to get some new inspiration for the restaurant and its menu. Though her food journey has some ups and downs, one very cool thing about the episode is that it features cameos from real people and places in the Chicago food scene.
Sydney starts her journey at Kasama, a bakery and modern Filipino restaurant in Chicago’s East Ukrainian Village. As the episode spotlights, they serve their own twist on breakfast and lunch, plus a ton of creative, colorful pastries. Kasama got a Michelin star in 2022 for the first time, per Eater.
One restaurant that’s also featured heavily in the episode is Avec. Sydney talks to restauranteur Donnie Madia, who runs One Off Hospitality. That restaurant group includes Avec, The Publican, Publican Quality Meats, The Violet Hour, Big Star, and Dove’s Luncheonette. Madia gives her advice about the service and quality it takes to get a Michelin star, one of her goals for The Bear. The episode also features Claire McDonal, who, per her LinkedIn, is the general manager at Avec, as well as Dylan Patel, who, according to his Instagram page, is the chef de cuisine at Avec. Sydney also talked to a butcher played by Rob Levitt, who’s head butcher at Publican Quality Meats, according to his Instagram.
The third episode also features a cameo from Daniel Wat and Eric Wat, brothers who run the Chicago dumpling restaurant Lao Peng You.
Additionally, David Posey, co-owner of the restaurant Elske, according to his Instagram, gives Sydney a hand in the episode, too. That’s particularly appropriate since back in 2022, Edebiri told POPSUGAR that when she was going through culinary training before the show filmed its first season, Elske was one of the restaurants that helped her out. “I’m very grateful for them,” she said. “Elske in Chicago saved my life [and] made me look not completely fake.”
