Carmen Berzatto

Carmen Berzatto is a Chicago, born-and-raised, 28 year old Italian-American chef. He and his siblings, Nat and Mikey, grew up in an abusive and chaotic household. Leaving them all with their own demons. Carmen was the shy and quiet one of the bunch and wanted to follow his older brother, Mikey’s, steps of owning a restaurant. He was very excited to plan one with the name of “The Bear” to run with Mikey, only for Mikey to go without him and buy his own restaurant called, “The Beef”, where Mikey was adamant on not letting Carm work at. This bothered Carmen so bad to the point he went and became the best chef he could, just to spite Mikey. He went to CIA (Culinary Institution of America) and worked at a high end restaurant in New York called Noma. Where he also developed anxiety and depression. The job affected his health in the worst ways, from vomiting before work to having breathing problems in his sleep but, the need to prove Mikey wrong made him push through. His meteoric rise to stardom has lead to him slowly evolving past his awkward childhood self and come into his own. While away he lost touch with Mikey and their sister Natalie, instead focusing on his growing career. He eventually won the best up and coming chef award at the age of 21, and began gaining recognition for his dedication to his work. Deeply artistic, he has a rare and natural genius for his chosen field, resulting in his global recognition and fame at a young age, including 3 Michelin stars. That all came to a screeching halt when Mikey committed suicide, shooting himself in the head on the State Street Bridge. This blow leaves Carmy unmoored and undoes much of his progress. Carmy packed up and left New York to run his brothers restaurant, and reconnect with his remaining family. The restaurant is running on complete bullshit since Mikey was also on drugs. Every single aspect of the restaurant was run terribly, except the food, and it was Carmen’s job to fix that.