18 November 2025
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When Emmy-phenomenon “The Bear” wanted a stand-in for the best restaurant in the world in their fictionalized look at fine dining, they turned to Ever, in Chicago.
Throughout the episode, filmed in the actual Two-Star restaurant, precision flashes in long montage sequences: forks are polished ad nauseum, water is poured around a table with sharp choreography. In a scene where a “smudge” is bemoaned for an overlong period, the restaurant group's real-life chief operating officer, Amy Cordell, nods along.
“The intensity, precision and behind-the-scenes pressure are all very real, and they captured that beautifully,” Cordell said in an interview. “The show reflects the level of detail and emotional investment that goes into creating a seamless guest experience every night.”
Cordell, the winner of this year’s MICHELIN Guide Northeast Cities Service Award, presented by Capital One, stage-manages a restaurant that’s as exacting in reality as in its prestige drama portrayal. From table measurements to decibel levels to the pace of the menu, every detail is meticulously controlled.
Guests enter the restaurant through a hallway that feels like a cave before moving into the Ma Room, inspired by the Japanese concept of negative space. Inside, ingredients from the current menu hang from above while a first bite and welcome beverage are served.
“As they continue into the dining room, there is a noticeable shift in acoustics and energy,” Cordell says.
The room is built with sound-dampening material – felt on the ceiling, carpets on the floor – so guests can be fully present for the experience. A tasting menu of eight to ten elegant courses progresses purposefully.
“Everything we do begins with the question: How would we want to feel if we were the guest?” Cordell says. “Our goal is to create an environment that feels both luxurious and familiar, allowing guests to relax, have fun and truly experience the moment.”
In the highly sound-conscious restaurant, the team is always listening closely to guests, too – something winked at in “The Bear,” when a table is surprised with a course of deep dish pizza after remarking in private that they’d missed trying it while in town.
“Some guests even joke that we have microphones under the tables because of how precisely the team anticipates,” Cordell says.
Cordell started working in restaurants when she was 14, with an internship in the kitchen. After she moved to the front-of-house, “I was drawn to connecting with guests, learning their stories, what brought them to the restaurant, and helping to create something memorable,” she says.
She met Duffy at Avenues, the since-shuttered Two-Star spot in The Peninsula Chicago hotel (Two MICHELIN Keys). The pair went on to open Grace and lead it to Three Stars, before it closed in 2017.
Today, the relationship powers one of the most celebrated restaurant groups in the city.
“We immediately connected,” Cordell says of Duffy, “sharing the same values and belief in always leading by example. We hold ourselves to the same expectations we set for our teams.”
Hero image: ©Anthony Tahlier/Amy Cordell
