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Jeremy Allen White Worked in a Michelin Star Kitchen to Prepare for The Bear

The Shameless alum went full method before filming the FX comedy.
  • Jeremy Allen White in Shameless (Photo: Paul Sarkis/Showtime/Everett Collection)
    Jeremy Allen White in Shameless (Photo: Paul Sarkis/Showtime/Everett Collection)

    Shameless star Jeremy Allen White finds himself back in Chicago, playing Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto in FX's The Bear. In the new comedy series, White plays a talented young chef who returns home after his brother's suicide to run his family sandwich shop, The Original Beef of Chicagoland. As White revealed to Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Friday, he went full method, going through "extensive" training in Michelin star restaurants around the country to prepare for the role.

    "I was completely clueless in the kitchen before this show, and then I progressively got to kind of mediocre," White says. "I went to two weeks of cooking school. I worked in several really wonderful restaurants in Los Angeles, Chicago, and in New York. It was really amazing — I'd never studied a skill that much for any other job, and it was really great to have months of training to learn about character and learn about Carmy through a skill that he'd also studied."

    White spent the most time at the Michelin star-rated restaurant Pasjoli in Santa Monica, CA. "The chef there, Dave Beran... [is] a really serious guy, very good at what he does, and he let me spend a lot of time there," said White. "He let me cook on the line during busy nights. It was pretty incredible that they really let me in."

    "He had to work extremely hard," co-showrunner Joanna Calo confirmed to EW. "Jeremy is very good with his knife now."

    Maybe he could teach Kendall Jenner a thing or two?

    All eight episodes of The Beat drop on Hulu June 23.

    Deena ElGenaidi's writing has been featured in Nylon, MTV News, Insider, The AV Club, and more. You can follow her on Twitter @deenaelg.

    TOPICS: Jeremy Allen White, FX, The Bear