Summary

• The Bear season 2 features a cast of returning and surprising cameos, elevating its culinary drama.
• The series includes real-life chef Donnie Madia in a cameo, offering guidance to Sydney in leading the new restaurant.
• Matty Matheson, who plays the recurring character Neil Fak, is ironically the only main employee at The Bear who never cooks.

The Bear season 2 marks the return of many season 1 cast , of whom one is a real-life chef. Set in the backdrop of Chicago like its predecessor, The Bear season 2 begins by highlighting how Carmy and the crew have overcome many financial troubles after finding Mikey's hidden stash in The Bear season 1's ending. However, with the dream of starting a new restaurant ahead of them, they face even bigger challenges and stakes. While walking audiences through Carmy, Sydney, and their team's challenges and struggles, The Bear season 2 features several surprising cameos.

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From Will Poulter's appearance as Marcus' mentor to Jamie Lee Curtis showing up as Carmy's mother, The Bear season 2 has several fascinating cameos that further elevate its culinary drama. Along with the cameos, The Bear season 2 also brings back many primary and ing cast from season 1. Amusingly, one of the returning secondary The Bear cast is a real celebrity chef, making his role in the series' storyline ironic.

The Bear's Fak Actor Matty Matheson Is A Real Professional Chef

In season 2, The Bear has a cameo from real-life chef Donnie Madia, who plays himself in the series and only briefly appears as a guiding force for Sydney, helping her determine how she can successfully lead her new kitchen brigade at The Bear restaurant. However, other than him, another actor is secretly a real chef: Matty Matheson, playing the recurring character Neil Fak in The Bear's seasons 1 and 2. Like the main Berzatto family characters in The Bear, Matty Matheson has his roots set in the culinary world.

Matheson's grandfather owned and ran DeSable's The Blue Goose restaurant, where Matheson first gained his culinary experience (via Matty Matheson: A Cookbook). Later in 2000, The Bear star moved to Toronto, Canada (via TorontoLife) and attended the cooking program at Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning. Although he quit soon after, he continued his culinary journey by working under renowned chefs like Rang Nguyen and at well-established Canadian restaurants such as Le Sélect Bistro and La Palette.

Fak Is Ironically The Only Main Employee At The Bear Who Is Never Seen Cooking

Before taking the role of Fak in The Bear, Matt Matheson made his television debut in Viceland's It's Suppertime and Dead Set on Life, and was also invited to an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!. However, out of all his television appearances, his The Bear role is the most ironic because, despite being a real professional chef, Matheson never cooks in the series (so far).

What makes his role as the handyman in The Bear season 2 even funnier is that all the other main employees of the show's central restaurant can be seen cooking at some point, even though they are all actors and not professional chefs like him. Even characters like Richie and Sugar cook at some point in the series despite being front-desk employees at Carmy and Sydney's The Bear restaurant.

The actors have had kitchen training so that no hand doubles are used in the close-ups of prep scenes. Jeremy Allen White even worked in the kitchen at Pasjoli, a French bistro in Santa Monica, CA that was awarded a Michelin star in 2021, after landing the role of Carmy.

Since Matty Matheson's Fak is the only one who never dips his feet in the world of cooking, it seems like The Bear intentionally makes this ironic distinction to highlight how its storyline portrays the human condition at its core, where the culinary elements are mere narrative devices. It is important to note, though, that other than playing Neil Fak, Matty Matheson is also the co-producer for The Bear and played a crucial role in making the show's culinary elements more believable.

Sources: TorontoLife, Matty Matheson: A Cookbook