Adelaide chef Duncan Welgemoed’s cookbook, Africola has been featured on the multi-award-winning TV streaming series, The Bear
Welgemoed is one of the owners and the chef at Africola, a South-African themed bar and restaurant on East Terrace, Adelaide which has become an institution after it opened in 2014. He uses a wood-fired oven, strong flavours with smoke and flame and North African spices to create a unique dining experience.
In Disney +’s series, The Bear, Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, played by Jeremy Allen White, is a chef in a Chicago restaurant of that name. In its fourth season, The Bear has gained a cult following by obsessive fans, many of whom are chefs or work in hospitality. For those thinking of becoming a chef, the show might serve as a warning. Could you take this sort of heat in the kitchen?
The frenetic pace and tension in The Bear’s kitchen, and the volume of “Yes, chef!” being screamed above the noise of cooking and plates would be triggering for some and may not an ideal way to switch off after a long shift in hospitality.
Cookbook hunters and collectors
Eric Frankel, The Bear’s set decorator, gathered cookbooks, including Duncan Welgemoed’s, from all over the world for the Carmen character who is obsessively chasing culinary perfection.
There are cookbook collectors who are pausing the show to take note of Carmy’s cookbooks and sales are reflecting the interest. One out-of-print book, Quay, by Australian chef Peter Gilmore, was selling for US$900 on eBay.
Duncan Welgemoed (top left) chef at Africola (top right) , a South-African themed bar and restaurant on East Terrace, Adelaide.
Tangents and trivia on TV series, The Bear
Jeremy Allen White stars as the chef, Carmen Berzatto in The Bear on Disney/FX’s streaming service Photo: FX
The Bear is about a perfectionist chef, Carmy Berzatto, who comes back to Chicago to run his deceased brother’s café. He is soon on a mission to change everything in pursuit of a Michelin star.
It had 23 Emmy nominations in 2024 and 13 nominations in 2025.
Comedy? Don’t make me laugh.
Controversially, the Emmys classed it as a comedy due to an old rule that said any show less than 30 minutes is a comedy. The Bear is a pressure cooker of pure tension and stress, with storylines about suicide, grief and PTSD, albeit with some dark humour. Laugh-out-loud jokes are about as rare as a blue steak. A fab episode that delivers all of the above in one go (series 2, episode 6) is the family Xmas with matriarch played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Watch this with a glass of something to calm your nerves.
There are calls to create another Emmy category, Dramedy, which will make it fairer for brilliant comedies like Hacks and The Studio to compete in the future.
See our story about the cult clothing phenomenon started by The Bear. In Art/Design.
Inspiration for The Bear
Will Guidara, hospitality guru, has had an impressive career in some of US’s most famous restaurants including Spago and Wolfgang Puck’s in LA. As general manager he developed his unique style of hospitality which was game-changing. He would hire a team of what he called “dream weavers” to give the highest level of service to customers. This rather eccentric, obsessive style is referenced in The Bear.
World’s Best Restaurant
With business partner and chef Daniel Humm he ran and later bought Eleven Madison Park. In 2017 they were named, ‘World’s Best Restaurant’.
Who awards World’s Best Restaurant’?
A UK media company, William Reed produces this annual list. In 2025 the World’s Best was awarded to a Peruvian restaurant, Maido.