The Bear Season Two Premieres With a Boia De Tie-In

Season two of FX's The Bear premieres tonight. The show became a breakout hit for its gritty and realistic view of the hospitality industry. In the first season, we meet Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), who takes over a struggling restaurant after his brother dies.

In the new season, Carmy and his makeshift restaurant family attempt to reinvent the old sandwich shop in pursuit of culinary excellence.

The premise hits home for chefs Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer, who opened Boia De in a Little Haiti strip mall. The restaurant, which celebrates its fourth anniversary next week, saw the couple trading in their La Polita food cart for the 24-seat Italian restaurant. For their efforts, Boia De earned a Michelin star. In addition, their second restaurant, Walrus Rodeo, has a mention in the Michelin Florida Guide.

Giangrandi and Meyer maintain that their focus isn't on winning awards, though Meyer admits that when they received their Michelin star, they were excited, but not much has changed behind the scenes." We made sure the team knew that nothing would change. We earned a star doing our thing, so why would we change course? The only thing we did change was we made sure we put ourselves in the customers' shoes when analyzing our business. Even though we were still going to be the same little place, the customers would be coming with higher expectations. We needed to make sure we kept that in mind with all of our decisions."

The similarities between The Bear's Carmy and Boia De's Giangrandi and Meyer have not gone unnoticed.

The couple was asked to be to star in a series of shorts sponsored by American Express and Resy that spotlight several independent restaurants across the country. Each restaurant's story was filmed as a short documentary, interspersed with scenes from The Bear. They will air during the show on Hulu (for those who pay for the streaming service with commercials). Other participating restaurants include New York City's Yellow Rose and Pijja Palace in Los Angeles.

Meyer tells New Times that he and Giangrandi are big fans of the show, adding, "I think Luci watched all of season one in two or three nights while I was at work.". When one of the senior managers at Resy reached out to them to be a part of the project, they jumped at the chance. "We love the show, so we couldn't say 'yes' any faster."

Meyer hopes Miamians tune in to The Bear to watch Boia De's part — and to get a feel for how a restaurant is run. "It does a great job showing what it takes to run a restaurant — the stress, the administration, the HR aspects, and of course, the cooking."

For all its accuracy, says Meyer, there are some less glamorous parts of restaurant life that even The Bear left out. "Ultimately, though, it is for entertainment, so some of the more tedious parts of the behind-the-scenes are omitted. For example, it doesn't show the several hours a week it takes to calculate payroll and pay staff, make sure our trash company picks up our dumpster on time, or take a monthly inventory of all the food and beverage we have, but it's understandable they wouldn't include that in a half-hour show."