Career
Trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Chef Sydney is a "rising luminary within her profession," young, Black, "unapologetically ambitious," assertive, tenacious, an icon of "female desirability," creative, a generally astute businesswoman, and "immensely intelligent." [1] [3] [4] As a female chef, her profession, cooking, is typically uncompensated labor for most women worldwide, and she is a comparative rarity even within her industry. [5] After putting herself through culinary school as a driver for United Parcel Service (UPS), she worked at a series of high-end Chicago restaurants before opening her own catering business. [3] Sheridan Road Catering, which was seemingly a sole proprietorship, ultimately failed, leaving her with a credit score of "negative one million." [6] (Her financial situation presumably did not improve when the Beef became the Bear because she, Carm, and Nat all agreed to defer compensation for six months while the restaurant got underway.) [7] Critics of the character note that "whenever she is left out of decisions and feels she isn't being respected, she becomes sullen and childish...[and] defensive when she feels others are threatening [to exclude her] or slow her down." [8] She can be envious and immature (as summarized by Carmy, she is intelligent, ambitious, impatient, and green), and one character critique argued that, "Deep down, what she wants is to supplant her idol...Yes, she wants [to be] and believes she is already on an equal footing with Carmy, a chef who already has a Michelin star on his CV...taking offense when he changes her creations or replaces them with his own." [9] Vogue described her in a cover story on Edebiri as "hyper-competent, superdriven, rather anxious." [10]
Initially brought in to stage, [4] and then hired as a sous chef at the Beef, [11] Sydney brought more than culinary acumen to the restaurant, as she was also broadly emotionally stable and behaviorally well-adjusted, whereas her boss Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his "cousin" Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) are prone to tempestuously cursing each other out, and Syd promptly becomes the central figure in Carmy's push to transform the family restaurant he inherited from his late brother into the Bear, a respectable, hospitable, and profitable fine-dining restaurant in Chicago's River North neighborhood. [1] The pair, Syd and Carm, seemingly find an immediate "camaraderie" amidst the chaos of the Beef. [3] As phrased by one academic study of the challenges of translating the sometimes "derogatory and sexualised" idiomatic English-language expressions found in The Bear dialogue, "As newcomers, Carmy and Sydney are unable to mingle with the local kitchen crew members. Their professional expertise allows them to cooperate and contest...[in] the kitchen—where lived experiences and practices converge to create everyday interactions that are not inclusive and accessible to everyone in that particular place." By the fourth episode of the series, set a couple of months into the story, Sydney is established as not just the most talented chef in Carmy's employ but a "trusted confidant." [13]
Both Syd and Carmy express, in characteristically distinct ways, the show's message that food is often a "tangible expression of love and tenderness." [14] Carmy and Sydney have a deeply intimate and equally fraught partnership, and "she asserts a brand of female partnering we rarely get to see in popular culture. When Carmy flubs, Sydney challenges him. When she has better ideas, she speaks up. She recognizes his immaturity, selfishness and even his demons, and rarely lets him off the hook. She knows what he's capable of and holds him to a commensurate standard." [1] The pair are both partners and opponents throughout the series: "Carmy is set in contrast to the sous chef Sydney, a young African American woman who demonstrates the creativity and decisiveness to lead the restaurant into its new iteration. However, not only does Carmy fail to support Sydney as an equal partner: whenever he feels overwhelmed, his violent temper threatens to undo the positive changes they have achieved." Still, he has a knack for soothing her anxiety and fear of failure, as when he reassures her and boosts her confidence in a quiet conversation in a private nook in the dining room right before the restaurant's soft open, in what has been called "one of the most memorable scenes in the series." [16] By season three, Carmy is so dependent on Sydney's leadership that he offers her an ownership stake in the business as an enticement to remain on staff, but simultaneously his "reckless, selfish choices are destroying what little stability Sydney has in her life, not to mention rotting away her self-confidence; Carmy offering her co-ownership of the Bear is empty legal terminology." [3] There is a subtext to the offer that complicates Syd's decision-making process: "What is a contract if not a kind of marriage?...All those close-ups...are tiles in a broader mosaic telling the story of the bond between family and legacy. The Bear has established that Carmy and Syd share a love expressed in dedication and commitment, and stretched meals over multiple seasons by cracking, shattering, and repairing those foundations." [17]
Carmy's tendency to self-sabotage ultimately becomes beside the point because while he was the center of attention, Sydney became the heart and soul of the restaurant, having earned the loyalty and devotion of the staff (many of whom are Carmy's relatives) and experienced a personal creative peak despite Carm's neglect. [18] In the meantime she considers a job offer from Adam Shapiro, a former colleague of Carmy's at a fictionalized version of Chicago's acclaimed Ever, tentatively accepting but then ultimately choosing to stay at the Bear. [18] According to one scholarly analysis, Syd's emotional and professional ascent through the Berzatto family restaurant ultimately establishes her as the narrative's second-most important character. In 2025, The New York Times described Edebiri as "essentially a co-lead with White." [20]
Sydney was initially hazed and sabotaged by line cook Tina Marrero (Liza Colón-Zayas), and sexually harassed and generally undermined by Richie. She ultimately won them over, accidentally (on purpose?) stabbing Richie in the ass along the way. [21] She is now both close friends with them both, protecting Tina from Carmy's exacting standards and ultimately promoting Richie to a long-deserved status within the family hierarchy. [4] Syd is an excellent and patient mentor to younger or less experienced staffers. [14] According to Colón-Zayas, Tina is "in love with her [restaurant] family," not least because of the mutual devotion between her and Syd, whom she sometimes calls "Ma." [22] Among other projects, Syd has developed the Beef's runner, Gary "Sweeps" Woods (Corey Hendrix) into a skilled sommelier who trained with Syd's onscreen friend, real-life som Alpana Singh. Sweeps has become adept at picking "perfect" wine pairings for dishes at the Bear while "strong" wine sales become a major source of revenue for the fragile restaurant. [23] [24] Syd encouraged Carmy's older sister, Natalie "Sugar" Berzatto (Abby Elliott) to join the Bear as the restaurant's business manager; the two women have developed a close relationship in their own right, with Nat ultimately deeming Syd a more reliable leader than her own brother. [25] Nonetheless Edebiri has described her character as a "bad communicator." [26] Still, as recounted by Rolling Stone television critic Alan Sepinwall, while Syd "loves everyone at The Bear...she came there for Carmy. On the occasions when he's able to get his various neuroses under control, he's an incredible partner who makes Syd feel better about herself than even her beloved father can. And when he's failing at that, at least she can console herself with the understanding that the good version of Carmy will make an appearance sooner or later." [27] In the emotionally raw season-four finale "Goodbye" Carmy told Sydney "because you're the bear," a claim about which he seemed quite certain but the meaning of which has been debated. [28]
As emphasized in the episode "Worms," co-written by Edebiri and fellow castmember Lionel Boyce, Sydney's dedication to the Beef and then the Bear over the course of the series leads Sydney to neglect her personal life outside of work. [18] Over the course of seasons three and four, Syd becomes increasingly remote from her dad, with whom she lived at the beginning of the series and with whom she has always been close. [20] For his part, "Dadamu" is protective of his daughter and expresses concern about the "flimsy" partnership deal being offered by the Berzattos. [29]
Other attributes
Creative yet systematic, her solo sensual food tour of Chicago in season two led one critic to describe her as a "stoic" and an authentic artist: "She doesn't swoon. She writes and sketches in her notebook in a methodical way. No impassioned scribbling." [30] Although classically trained, she is also cognizant that not every eater wants elite food; when cooking for her elementary-school age cousin T.J. (Arion King), she prepares an elevated version of a familiar ground-beef dish flavored with a spice mix (Cheeseburger Macaroni-flavor Hamburger Helper) that is commonly available in the food desert where T.J. lives. [14] [18]
In the kitchen at the Bear she typically wears an array of head scarves and chef whites. [31] The custom Thom Browne chef whites, embroidered with her initials and decorated with an unobtrusive red and blue stripe that is repeated elsewhere on the restaurant's linens, were a gift from Chef Berzatto, a gesture that one media critic deemed tantamount to "a marriage proposal" and that did nothing to discourage audience speculation about what underlies the pair's "great chemistry." [31] She changes up her bandanas, and her multiple earrings, almost daily, with the hair wraps being "[sometimes] vintage, others modern; there are batik-looking patterns, ones that look inspired by silk Hermès scarves, and a few that could have been plucked from the MoMA gift shop." [31] According to costume designer Courtney Wheeler, Syd's head scarves are a form of personal expression, generally, and as well as a "bit of an instinct to protect [her] hair," as a Black woman specifically. [32] Despite the limitations imposed by her work in an industrial kitchen, Sydney's personal style has been characterized as "pretty damn chic." [32]
In more casual circumstances, she wears vintage T-shirts, some borrowed from the closets of her parents. [33] One fashion blogger wrote that Adamu "regularly dressed in a sophisticated androgyny that encapsulates American workwear. Off-duty, we see her in powder-pink Stussy carpenter pants, Carhartt overalls, crafty little tees by Bode, and crisp overshirts she probably stole from her father." [34]
She almost certainly does not have a fennel allergy, even though when Carmy worked at Empire in New York for the villainous Chef Fields (Joel McHale), he modified a paupiette of hamachi dish, replacing the usual accompanying fennel soubise with a sauce made from blood orange juice and then told the server that the change was to accommodate a fennel allergy. This plate was served to Sydney, and is probably part of the "best meal she ever ate" that was prepared by Carmy before they even met. [35] Thus, Carmy's motivations for altering that plate might have been straightforward rebellion against Fields, and a dish that represented his individual cuisine may or may not have made its way to Sydney's table serendipitously. Or not. Confusion persists. [35]
Following release of season two, some fans speculated that she might be romantically interested in Richie, others theorized that Sydney might be a lesbian. [36]
