Carmen Berzatto

Aliases

Carmy (by everyone) Bear (by family) Carm (by friends) Jeff (by Tina) Cousin (by Richie) Bobby Flay (by Richie) Eleven Madison Park Dickhead (by Richie) Mr. New York (by family) Jeffrey (by Tina & Sweeps) Jefferson (by Sweeps) Carmy (by everyone) Bear (by family) Carm (by friends) Jeff (by Tina) Cousin (by Richie) Bobby Flay (by Richie) Eleven Madison Park Dickhead (by Richie) Mr. New York (by family) Jeffrey (by Tina & Sweeps) Jefferson (by Sweeps)

Relatives

Donna Berzatto (mother) Natalie Berzatto (sister) Pete (brother-in-law) Mikey Berzatto (older brother) †

Occupation

Chef and Owner of The Original Beef of Chicagoland and The Bear in Season 2

Backstory

A Chicago native and award-winning chef, Carmy leaves the world of fine dining to take control of his family's restaurant, following the suicide of his older brother Mikey. While his efforts to revitalize the restaurant are largely successful, he ultimately closes down the restaurant in favor of opening a new one. The youngest of three children, Carmy grew up in the River North neighborhood of Chicago with his parents, two siblings, and an extensive network of family, many in somewhat shady businesses. His parents had a rocky relationship, due to his father's lack of interest and his mother's mental health issues. He and his siblings grew up fast in their emotionally abusive and chaotic household and held a strong bond. Carmy was a quiet and awkward child with a stutter who did not fit in. As the baby of the family, he was reliant on his boisterous and charismatic older brother, Michael, for much of his emotional and social support. Cooking was an activity they shared together, which Carmy greatly enjoyed. The pair dreamed of opening a restaurant together once they grew up, which they planned to name "The Bear".

Life now

When his older brother, Mikey, took over running The Original Beef of Chicagoland, a family restaurant which had been in the Berzatto family for generations, Carmy wanted to work there but his brother refused. Because of this, Carmy decided to rebel and prove his brother wrong by becoming the best chef possible. He went to culinary school in Paris and staged in Copenhagen before moving to New York where he eventually worked his way up to sous chef at a three Michelin star restaurant. In the process, he found out he was truly gifted and had found his place in world. His meteoric rise to stardom has lead to him slowly evolving past his awkward childhood self and come into his own. While away he lost touch with Mikey and their sister Natalie, instead focusing on his growing career. He eventually won the best up and coming chef award at the age of 21, and began gaining recognition for his dedication to his work. Deeply artistic, he has a rare and natural genius for his chosen field, resulting in his global recognition and fame at a young age, including credit for retaining his restaurant's three stars. But this all came to a halt when he heard that Mikey had committed suicide and left him the restaurant in his will. This blow leaves Carmy unmoored and undoes much of his progress. Carmy packed up and left New York to run his brothers restaurant, and reconnect with his remaining family.

Personality

Carmen is a quiet, observant, and focused person. He feels things deeply, but has difficulty expressing himself and understanding his emotions, leading him to instead stay quiet and come across as awkward. He feels trapped and frustrated when he can't explain or express himself to his satisfaction. He has high anxiety, which makes him physically ill and disoriented when it peaks. Cooking and the routine, control, and expression of it, calms him down. Cooking and his family are just about the only things he has in his life. He works in the kitchen all day only to come home to a nearly bare apartment and watch cooking shows. When asked what he does for fun or what he enjoys, Carmy is unable to think of anything, not even cooking. Carmy admits that he is very guarded about finding enjoyment in anything, because he always expects it to be ruined. Carmy insists on an atmosphere of respect in his kitchen and prefers intense calm and professional efficiency. He generally does not tolerate staff spats or emotional outbursts. Unlike his own experience learning in the greatest restaurant kitchens in the world, Carmy is careful not to engage in the aggressive and verbally abusive tactic common in those environments. Instead, Carmy is quietly supportive and encouraging of his crew, and freely shares his skills and techniques.

Personality 2

When overwhelmed, he tends to withdraw and grow quiet as his anxiety ratchets up to alarming degrees. But even this quiet and somewhat shy man has his breaking point, and when he reaches it, Carmy will explode larger and louder than imaginable. Outside of the kitchen, Carmy is not intellectually inclined, having barely graduated high school. He dislikes and does not comprehend many of the business-side aspects of owning a restaurant. His tendency is to dump administrative and managerial duties on Richie or Sydney to focus on his craft. He often finds himself on alien soil when needing to deal with emotional family or friends. Carmy is aware of shortcomings when it comes to feelings and personal interactions. Through therapy via Al-anon meetings, he has been conscientiously trying to remember to ask how people are and be more sensitive to their feelings, as well as working on re-finding the ability to enjoy things.

Physical Description

Carmy is a young man with white skin and blue eyes. He has wavy, golden brown hair that he keeps at a medium length. He is commented on several times for his short stature though he makes up for it with a muscular build. He is always dressed for work, in casual clothing and aprons.

Life returning home

Carmy is a James Beard Award-winning chef who returns to his hometown of Chicago in the summer of 2022 to manage The Original Beef of Chicagoland, a restaurant owned by his recently deceased brother, Michael. However, Carmy faces resistance from the stubborn staff and his brother's best friend, Richie, who are reluctant to accept his proposed changes to modernize the restaurant. Carmy faces significant challenges in taking over The Beef. It is difficult for Carmy to adjust down to the level of the humble sandwich shop. The unprofessional and chaotic staff have known him since childhood and have no respect for his accomplishments, Carmy blows budget they can't afford on premium ingredients, and Carmy is used to well-established kitchens not in need of major process and environment overhauls. Carmy is discovering that, while he can make excellent food at the highest level, he lacks other vital skills, like teaching and bookkeeping, essential to saving The Beef. Carmy also learns the hard way that many of the methods which worked in other restaurants, will not work in The Beef's neighborhood, such as when he tries to bring in customers via social media, and instead creates a mob the small restaurant cannot handle.

Restaurant

Carmy hires Sydney Adamu, a chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America and a Chicago native, as a part time stage. Carmy experienced verbal abuse from his boss while working at a fine dining restaurant in New York City in a flashback. In the present, Carmy tries to overhaul the menu, but the staff members continue to resist and fail to show him respect. The restaurant's poor management is revealed when a health inspector discovers multiple safety and sanitation issues, resulting in a low C rating. Carmy also learns that his brother was deeply in debt to their uncle, Cicero, for $300,000. Despite Cicero's offer to buy the restaurant, Carmy refuses and agrees to repay his brother's loan. Sydney, who wants to come on as a full time sous chef, comes to Carmy with a business proposal, which makes him realize he can utilize her business acumen, an area he is severely lacking in himself. At his sister's prompting, Carmy begins to attend Al-Anon meetings to understand his brother's struggles with addiction better and work on his own mental health and grief. Carmy tells Sydney he wants to reorganize the kitchen staff as a formal Escoffier kitchen brigade and retrain them to a high level of cleanliness and professionalism. He appoints her as the sous-chef. Carmy ends up leaving during the implementation to attend an Al-Anon meeting. Without Carmy's support, she feels abandoned and drowning as she tries to accomplish it. Sydney rises to the challenges and raises her concerns to Carmy, who recognizes his poor actions and lack of support.

restaurant 2

To work off part of their debt to uncle Cicero, Carmy and Richie cater a children's birthday party for him, where a mishap occurs when homemade Ecto cooler spiked with Richie's Xanax causes the children to pass out. Surprisingly, Cicero finds the incident humorous. As the staff starts to connect with their new roles, particularly Marcus, the passionate baker, Carmy and Sydney decide to create a new dinner menu to increase profits. This leads to further conflicts when Carmy rejects a risotto dish of hers, telling her it's not ready. Sydney ends up serving the risotto to a customer, who turns out to be a food critic that writes a glowing review about the risotto. Carmy has a screaming breakdown when the combination of the review and Sydney accidentally leaving the preorder option on of their online ordering system results in a chaotic catastrophe and the restaurant receiving hundreds and hundreds of orders they cannot fill. Sydney and Marcus quit, and Carmy regrets his loss of control.Carmy attends another Al-Anon meeting, where he shares his strained relationship with his brother and his desire to work at The Beef.

Restaurant 3

The restaurant hosts a bachelor party for some associates of Uncle Cicero to help pay back some of their debt. A fight breaks out, resulting in Richie's arrest, and Carmy uses the restaurant's emergency funds to bail him out. Carmy apologizes for his behavior during the online ordering catastrophe. Marcus returns to work, but Sydney is still unsure. Dissociating from stress and exhaustion, Carmy accidentally starts a stove fire but takes no action, leaving the other chefs to extinguish it. Carmy apologies to Sydney who later returns. Richie gives Carmy a letter left by Michael, which includes a spaghetti recipe with a note suggesting the use of smaller cans of tomatoes. When Carmy opens one of the cans, he finds hidden hundred-dollar bills. As the chefs open all the cans, they discover more and more hidden money, hundreds of thousands of it. Carmy decides to close The Beef and open a new restaurant called The Bear, announcing the closure with a sign.