Yes, You Spied Bradley Cooper in ‘The Bear’s Season 3 Finale

Hello good reader! If you’ve found your way to this article you’ve likely just watched a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene in The Bear Season 3 that made you do a double take, rewind, and question your eyesight out loud before grabbing the nearest phone or laptop to furiously search for answers.

Great news — we’ve got them!

Spoilers for The Bear Season 3 ahead.

The third season of FX’s Emmy-winning series served up piping hot celebrity cameos — from John Cena and Josh Hartnett to Liza Colón-Zayas’ IRL husband David Zayas (who played her character Tina’s hubby on the show) and more. But the finale spices things up by welcoming a group of real-life chefs to the show in honor of Ever’s funeral dinner.

When Carmy arrives at Ever in Season 3, Episode 10, “Forever,” he stops to marvel over several nostalgic collages. Viewers get a glimpse of some of culinary industry geniuses in action through photos, flashback footage, and newspaper clippings that celebrate big names who later make cameos in the show. If you pay close enough attention, however, you’ll also spy an unexpected photo of actor and filmmaker Bradley Cooper in the mix.

Yes, chef! A photo of Bradley Cooper is in Season 3 of The Bear! We swear!

Cooper’s image appears alongside photos of noteworthy names in the culinary world, including Grant Achatz, Christina Tosi, Kevin Boehm, Anna Posey, Rosio Sanchez, Malcolm Livingston II, Will Guidara, Wylie Dufresne, and Genie Kwon. So what the heck is Bradley Cooper doing on The Bear, and why is he standing in a kitchen? Well, folks. It’s time to flash back to 2015, when the actor starred as another tortured chef, Adam Jones, in a film called Burnt.

The photo in The Bear Season 3 finale that shows Cooper standing in front of a stovetop ready to get his chef on is from the movie directed by John Wells and written by Steven Knight (from a story by Michael Kalesniko). Burnt follows a troubled chef who flips tables, screams at fellow chefs, and throws tantrums in his kitchen on a quest to reclaim his culinary career and receive a third Michelin star — so, yeah, definitely a few parallels to be made between Burnt and The Bear. So does this mean Chef Adam Jones exists in The Bear universe? Is he a friend of Carmy’s? Is there potential for a Bradley Cooper guest role in the future? Or is the photo simply an ode to the actor’s film?

Like the FX series, Burnt sought expert input to make magic happen in the kitchen, so Cooper learned some culinary skills from British restaurateur and chef consultant Marcus Warein. But let it be known the 2015 film isn’t the actor’s only experience as a chef.

Longtime Bradley Cooper stans will likely remember he starred in Kitchen Confidential as chef Jack Bourdain. The 2005 series was inspired by chef Anthony Bourdain’s bestselling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, but sadly, it was canceled after 13 episodes.

For those who assume Cooper only supports the culinary industry when he’s playing a character behind the camera, guess again! As GQ noted in December 2023, Cooper got behind the burners in real life and hopped on a food truck in New York to serve up cheesesteaks with Danny DiGiampietro, the owner of Angelo’s Pizzeria in South Philadelphia. (As a reminder, Cooper is from Philadelphia. If you don’t believe us, just ask Abbott Elementary!) All proceeds from the truck, called “Danny & Coop’s” were reportedly for charity. And per DiGiampietro, Cooper was “a natural” at whipping up tasty cheesesteaks. 

As one of the biggest shows on television today, The Bear won’t let just any on-screen or celebrity chef appear on the show. The Bradley Cooper photo is initially funny, and though we still don’t know the thought process behind the inclusion, it also feels earned.

On top of working to bring chef stories to the big and small screen, Cooper has gone the extra mile to serve up scrumptious meals off set, learn from real chefs, and do some good for the community in the process. Because Burnt and The Bear share some key ingredients, making the image available to both Carmy and viewers was quite the creative choice.

As for whether or not this is the only time we’ll see Cooper on The Bear, we’ll have to wait and see.

The Bear Season 3 is now streaming on Hulu.