It’s now one of the most famous sandwiches on TV, the Chicago-style Italian beef, fine-tuned by Carmy and the gang in the simmering kitchen of The Bear. But it’s got strong roots in the city.
There are plenty of recipes online for the iconic sandwich, first crafted by Italian-American immigrants in Chicago in the ’30s — Al’s #1 Italian Beef claims the sandwich’s invention since 1938. Columnist Lucas Kwan Peterson described Italian beef for the LA Times as “a 6- to 8-inch long sandwich filled with thin-sliced marinated meat on a French roll drenched in juice and swaddled tightly in waxed paper or insulated foil wrap. When you pick it up, it should feel heavier than expected; sodden like a wet diaper.” And it’s all topped with either spicy giardiniera or sweet peppers.
Brooklyn-based chef and longtime YouTuber Andrew Rea has spent years recreating iconic dishes from pop culture on his channel Binging with Babish, and this week, he hit the Chicago-style Italian beef the team on The Bear spent most of Season 1 trying to perfect.
Toronto chef Matty Matheson (who plays Neil Fak on the show) created the show’s sandwich with chef Courtney Storer — they’ve both been The Bear‘s culinary producers for dishes that appear on camera. Matheson and Storer made a video showing how to make the Chicago-style Italian beef two years ago for Matheson’s YouTube channel— Rea gives the video a shoutout in his own take.
Meanwhile, if you’re watching Season 3 of The Bear, read Mashable’s review.
