This Chicago Food Tour Visits Places That Inspired The Bear

Published June 26th, 2024

Photography by Jennifer Bain

We hop off our tour bus, storm into the original Mr. Beef on North Orleans and head straight to the irreverently named “Elegant Dining Room” where our Italian beef sandwiches await on a long picnic table.

The sandwiches are loaded with thinly sliced beef that has been soaked in its seasoned braising liquid until it’s piled on Liborio bakery’s French bread and wrapped in wax paper. 

I greedily wolf down my wet and wonderful sandwich — actually half sandwich — before the sweet bell peppers and hot giardiniera toppings make it to my end of the table. It’s the first thing I’ve eaten all day because I wanted to be good and hungry.

“How’d we do?” chef/tour guide Dave Zino asks when it’s time to move on. “Alright. I always like to start off on the right foot.” 

I’m in Chicago just before the June 27 premiere of season three of FX’s The Bear and have joined the “Yes, Chef! Chicago: A Bear-Inspired Food Tour” led by Chicago Food & City Tours.

For those who haven’t yet watched the hit dramedy series, Christopher Storer’s show follows an intense fine dining chef who returns to Chicago to run his family sandwich shop after his brother’s suicide.

Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) fights to transform both The Original Beef of Chicagoland and himself, with a motley kitchen crew that includes Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri), his cousin Richard “Richie” Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Marcus Brooks (Lionel Boyce). Toronto restaurateur/cooking TV personality Matty Matheson serves as executive producer but also plays handyman Neil Fak (Fak).

The bus tour, a hit since its launch last fall, costs $129 USD, runs 3.5 hours and criss-crosses River North, Logan Square and the West Loop. It mostly stops at places featured or mentioned on the show. Vegetarian diets (but not vegan, gluten free or lactose intolerant ones) can be accommodated with advance notice.

Mr. Beef appeared in the pilot, Zino reminds us, but the sandwich shop was then rebuilt at Cinespace Studios on the South Side of Chicago.

“I’m going to do two things today — I’m going to feed your bellies and feed your brains,” vows Zino, a retired chef who spent most of his career with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and who has grown to love sharing the history and culture of Chicago.

“Three goals for today’s tour. One I want you to have fun. Two I want you to learn something. Three, by the end of the day I want your belly to be pleasantly full. Oh, and one important thing, whenever I ask a question, you respond by saying `yes chef.’”

So where did our motley crew of nearly 30 Bear lovers go next? Time Out Market Chicago.

It wasn’t actually in The Bear, but the curated dining room boasts 18 eateries, communal seating and those all-important washrooms. “Picking partners is kind of like dating,” admits Zino, acknowledging that not every spot wants or can handle groups that dash in for one thing and quickly leave.

As we dig into caramelized chicken dumplings with lemongrass soy sauce and cilantro from Bill Kim’s Urbanbelly, I have time to put in my own order at Gutenburg. Chef Jorge Kauam’s elevated sweet potato fries with brown butter and blue cheese are a revelation and I share them with the others so I will still have room to eat at the next four stops.

Driving past Ever, which served as “the world’s greatest restaurant” where Richie stages in season two, we play a few rounds of Bear trivia and hear about “Chance the Snapper,” an abandoned alligator that wound up in Humboldt Park for one crazy week in 2019. Then we delve into Prohibition and Al Capone because, as Zino puts it, “what tour of Chicago doesn’t include gang information?”

We hit up Pizza Lobo because it’s where Sydney, in season two, episode three, scarfs down a slice of pepperoni from the takeout window, tries to poach kitchen staff and gets chased down an alley.

The old school tavern serves New York-style thin crust slices. “People think Chicago is all about deep dish pizza but that’s only one third,” says Zino. “The other two thirds Detroit style, Roman style, New York style.”

We pair our slices with The 77 by Hidden Hand Brewing. It was crafted “in homage to our unbreakable fortress city forged together as a collection of 77 communities.

According to the University of Chicago, this city has more than 200 distinct neighbourhoods in 77 distinct communities. According to Zino (who sports a blue apron in honour of The Bear), nobody says they’re from Chicago — they proudly specify their neighbourhood.  

I’ve been on plenty of food tours around the world and find they’re usually on foot and often rushed. This one is well paced and since it’s pouring, we’re all grateful for the bus.

“Desserts are next,” Zino announces. “You’ll always have room for dessert because it goes into a different stomach.”

Roeser’s Bakery — where Marcus goes in season one, episode four for donut inspiration — is too small to accommodate us so our fearless leader brings strawberry donuts to us. The bakery dates back to 1911 and its on a block that is called Honorary John C. Roeser Way after its founder.

There is room for us at Margie’s Candies, an ice cream parlour that makes candy and was established in 1921. Sydney popped by in “Sundae” (season two, episode three), but I have my “mini sundae” at the booth where the Beatles ordered six-scoop Atomic Sundaes in 1965 after a concert.

Finally, we are almost back where we started. Just steps from Mr. Beef is the Green Door Tavern. 

Chicago’s oldest tavern was established in 1872, openeing a year after the Great Fire of 1871 as one of the city’s last largest wooden commercial buildings. During Prohibition, a green door signified a speakeasy was hidden inside.

The tavern is visible in some scenes of The Bear, and Richie mentions it in season one while lamenting that the neighbourhood is changing. We say our goodbyes over Old Fashioneds.

“This tour is only as good as the show,” concludes Zino. He can’t wait to see what season three will bring in the way of new possible locations. A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Beef was shut down for filming. That tour got to eyeball the sandwich shop and ate at Al’s Beef instead

Where to Stay:

I finally stayed in the Netherlands-based hotel chain that has proudly disrupted the traditional hotel model and has pioneered “affordable luxury.” Opened in 2022, citizenM Chicago Downtown is between the Riverwalk and Millennium Park.

“Modern travellers have more important needs than chocolates on pillows,” the Dutch chain explains. “They love to mix and match their choices, like a Gap shirt with an Armani blazer, or a Zara coat with a Chanel bag. They take the train into town, but order champagne once they get there. We took this type of traveller and called them ‘mobile citizens’, or citizenM for short. Every decision we made, and continue to make, is based around them and their ever-evolving appreciation of luxury and value. We call this ‘affordable luxury for the people.’”

Guest rooms only have king beds and you control room ambiance (blinds, climate, TV and lights with changeable colors) by an iPad or the hotel app. 

I loved the self-service check-in at touch-screen terminals. My only regret? I didn’t realize that room keys — RFID cards that double as a payment method at canteen — can be kept as luggage tags and used as new keys for future stays. 

Jennifer Bain

After a career at daily newspapers, Jennifer began travelling the world in search of quirk in 2018. She goes wherever the story is, but has a soft spot for Canada and has been to all 10 provinces and all three territories. Jennifer has won multiple awards and written two cookbooks and three travel books. She lives in Toronto but has a vacation house on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, which some cheekily say is one of the four corners of the supposedly flat earth.