Save a promotional "The Bear" poster "way in the corner" of Mr. Beef, Chris Zucchero prioritizes sandwiches, not celebrity. "Somebody's got to wake up the next day and make beef," he said in the same Variety interview, inadvertently channeling one Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White). "I try to just keep everything and myself the same. It's what I've known my whole life. The only thing I've ever known in my life is that restaurant."
That being said, Zucchero hasn't been able to ignore "The Bear" entirely. Ahead of Season 1, someone from the show informed him that he had been scheduled for an audition. "I was like, 'No, no, no, you must have the wrong guy. I'm the guy that owns the restaurant,'" Zucchero recalled. "But then I just did it." He appears in the pilot as Chi-Chi, Carmy's meat dealer that sells him beef in exchange for vintage denim. In true Chicago fashion, the deal goes down underneath a Malört billboard.
"Now I have a newfound respect for what actors do," Zucchero said of the experience. "It's an incredibly hard thing to do." He didn't reprise the role in "The Bear" Season 2, but he did cater hot Italian beef sandwiches at the show's parties for the occasion.
