As he recruits for his restaurant, Vance is making sure he creates open door environments for all of his staff, so that everyone feels empowered to express themselves.
“Very similar to [The Bear] show, I want my kitchen staff to learn technique, style and organization,” Vance says. “I want guests to feel like each dish was created with passion and it’s a unique dining experience.”
For Danny Bullock, private chef and owner of Bull Young Bourbon, his current work has been a culmination of his career experiences, which began at The Trump International Hotel & Tower’s signature restaurant, Sixteen, on the garde-manger (cold dish) station at age 19. In those spaces, standards were incredibly high, and as a new culinary school grad, he quickly learned to stay in his lane to do his job effectively.
“Nothing left the kitchen unless it was considered perfect,” he recalls. “That was the highest level you could cook in, and I knew if I could work without being screamed at, I could be successful on this level.”
And while all chefs — no matter race, gender or background — are expected to perform with excellence, there is still an unspoken level of perfection that Black chefs in predominantly-white spaces know they have to uphold, which is expressed by both Marcus and Sydney throughout The Bear.
After a year, Bullock moved on from The Trump Hotel, and accepted a position at The Ritz-Carlton, Chicago as junior sous chef. He stayed there briefly before moving on to a head chef opportunity for a restaurant that never got off the ground. Humbled by this experience, he took his talents back to his home state of Delaware, and worked for Hotel DuPont, which ultimately opened doors for him to travel internationally. Often the only English-speaking chef in the kitchen, Bullock had to find ways to keep himself motivated.