How to make the "Italian beef" sandwich from The Bear

His intimate wood-panelled establishment attracts huge queues and features a changing quote on the wall – a recent one read: “The secret to a happy life is a liberal attitude to mayonnaise.” The suggestions box is a shredder.

As US drama The Bear returns for season four, there is undeniably no one better than London’s sandwich king to create his version of the show’s famous “Italian beef” for Radio Times – which he’s called: “You Best Lean In, It's Bear-y Beefy!”

In the first season, fine dining chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) returned to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop following his brother’s suicide, but soon set his sights on reopening it as a high-end restaurant – a plan that Halley finds ridiculous.

Halley started out working in Michelin star restaurants and then opened his sandwich shop in 2014, but the big difference between him and Carmy is that Halley stuck with the sandwiches.

“The sandwich in The Bear gave it legitimate Chicago culinary heritage, which I guess made the transition into fine dining feel like more of a progression… but that's bulls**t. The idea that f***ing fine dining is progress from sandwiches is a disgrace!” he says. “I could have opened a modern European small plates restaurant gunning for a Michelin star, but I realised that a lot of that food is about feeling clever and not making something delicious. Personally, I am not that interested in 32 course tasting menus. Who cares if you did a certain technique to the food – I just put mine between two bits of bread, mate! Who’s laughing now? Fine dining’s dead!” He lets out a hearty laugh.

Halley realised, “Nobody was thinking about sandwiches in this kind of chef-y way. That is what I hoped Carmy was going to do, and that The Bear might have been an exploration of what could be done with sarnies, but it turned out to completely reject the sandwich!” Well, they do keep a sandwich window open, and the Italian beef is still arguably the most iconic dish in the series. Halley corrects me: “It's not iconic because it's in The Bear. It's in The Bear because it's iconic”.

Halley has been to Chicago and tasted many Italian beef sandwiches and was even inspired by the American way of braising meats in sandwiches for his own shop. To research The Bear’s Italian beef, he rewatched the first series, studied a video of chef Matty Matheson (who plays Neil Fak in the show) and culinary producer Courtney Storer recreating the sandwich, and looked at traditional Chicago ways of making it – but it wasn’t a straightforward process. “In the first episode of The Bear, you see Carmy making the braising liquid for the beef, and he’s got tinned tomatoes in it. Then in Matty and Courtney’s video, there are no tomatoes. Nothing was quite how it appeared!”

Then, of course, he added his own Max twist. “I thought it looked like a good sandwich in the show, but there was no mayonnaise. Over my dead body will I ever make a sandwich without mayonnaise in it!” Malt vinegar mayonnaise is an absolute staple at Max’s Sandwich Shop, especially in their signature sandwich – Ham, Egg, ‘N’ Chips.

“When I make a sandwich, I don't think about sandwiches. I think about delicious plates of food that all go really well together, that are a pleasure to eat together, and then I turn that into a sandwich,” he adds.

For his take on it, Halley has used his shop’s usual focaccia dough, but made into baguettes. The bread is then layered with the traditional braised beef and gravy; orange, green, yellow and red bell peppers (cooked with the beef); and Chicago-style giardiniera– a chopped pickled vegetable salad made up of cauliflower, carrot, onion, celery and red pepper – but made spicy using chilli flakes for that heat kick.

“I also believe generally that crisps should be involved in a sandwich, because I think crunch is the element missing in nearly all sandwiches, but I haven't done that today, because the giardiniera is genuinely crunchy,” he says. You can usually expect a sizeable portion of thin fries, otherwise known as allumettes, meaning matchsticks, which are made on site with no seasoning, but just to add that necessary bite.

Halley describes the taste of “You Best Lean In, It's Bear-y Beefy!” as “flavours of Italian America – as Italian American as spaghetti and red sauce”. To serve it up, he borrows the Chicago way of wrapping it in two layers of greaseproof paper, and there’s only one way to devour this deliciously drippy, hefty handful where more is more – a method called the “Chicago Lean”.

Halley explains, “Tuck a napkin into your shirt, stand nine inches back from the table, lean your elbows on the table, hold your sandwich, and eat it leaning forwards so you don't get covered in gravy.” To be enjoyed with whatever beverage you like – preferably an ice-cold beer or a Coke.

Elbows firmly planted on the table, I lean in, and the elements of what Halley considers a “perfect” sandwich are all there – hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft. They all work together to make the most beautifully succulent sandwich topped and tailed with fresh, squishy bread filled with melt-in-your-mouth beef, small kicks of spice, plenty of textures for a well-balanced bite, and mayonnaise and gravy that run down my fingers (and my chin) – messy, delightful bliss. YES, CHEF!

In The Bear, the team’s motto is “Every second counts” – in Max’s Sandwich Shop, “Progress not perfection” is written on their kitchen whiteboard, but this sandwich is as close to perfection as you can get.

Season 4 of The Bear is on Disney+ from Thursday 26 June – sign up to Disney Plus for £4.99 a month or £79.90 a year now.

On 27 June from 12–3:30pm Max will be serving the “You Best Lean In, It's Bear-y Beefy!” sandwich that he created for RT at Max’s Sandwich Shop, 19 Crouch Hill, Finsbury Park, London N4 4AU.

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