‘The Big Brunch’ Is the Onscreen Comfort Food We Needed in 2022

“Fucking brunch,” Jeremy Allen White’s stressed-out chef Carmy tells Ayo Edebiri’s similarly overstretched Sydney. She agrees: “Fuck brunch.” In episode three of The Bear—a high-intensity series about the revamp of a struggling family restaurant—the pair of kitchen colleagues commiserate about a fate worse than failure: working the brunch shift. 

The union of breakfast and lunch—it’s become a status symbol, a verb, justification for guzzling champagne at daybreak or eating waffles at 2 p.m. But it’s not often a meal that earns a lot of respect. Enter HBO Max’s The Big Brunch, a cooking competition series created and hosted by Schitt’s Creek’s Dan Levy, in which 10 chefs compete across eight brunches to earn $300,000 to make their culinary dreams—from publishing a cookbook to reopening their restaurant that was closed mid-pandemic—a reality.

Levy, who has declared brunch his favorite meal, mentors and judges on the show alongside Eleven Madison Park restauranter Will Guidara and food writer Sohla El-Waylly, who became most known for her time at Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen. El-Waylly offers biting but never mean-spirited criticism on dishes and says she understands why some loathe brunch: “Everyone is hungover—the customers and the cooks.” And yet everything that’s divisive about the often overpriced, underseasoned meal is subverted in The Big Brunch, which I devoured during a recent bout with the flu.

Like any well-plated dish, the series is sumptuous to look at. It’s as warmly-lit as the impeccably-dressed judges, who enjoy cocktails throughout the episode, courtesy of bartender Xia Rashid. (She gives off the cool best friend of your big sister vibes.) Hamilton set designer David Korins created a bright, spacious kitchen for cooking and bistro-style dining room and bar for consumption. There’s a sliding partition that separates the two spaces during spirited deliberations in between each episode’s starter challenge and main course. The areas feel so realistically refined, so perfectly Nancy Meyers-esque, that you’ll feel stupidly shocked to discover during a mid-season farmer’s market challenge that it’s filmed on a soundstage.

And then there’s the food. Brunch has largely evaded a clear definition, which frees the show up to reflect more of a salient ideal about gathering than a stringent set of rules regarding ingredients. Those expecting heaps of eggs benedict or a parade of differently-garnished avocado toasts will be disappointed. Aside from the occasional bloody mary or breakfast biscuit, The Big Brunch encourages the chefs to make dishes that highlight their own stories and passions, hold the hollandaise. 

But the reason for a reservation lies with the cast, which is composed of diverse culinary voices who are doing positive things in their communities. Contestants are skilled in types of cuisine not typically spotlighted on TV and serving it up in ways that center their own distinct stories. There’s J Chong, a queer woman disowned by her family who connects with her Cantonese-Chinese American heritage through food; Roman Wilcox, a vegan chef who brings fresh, sustainable food to his underserved community out of a nearly-condemned church; andAntwon Brinson, a formerly incarcerated family man, whips up dishes like a coffee-crusted beef tenderloin that make the judges melt in their seats with each bite. And although they’re all vying for the same prize money, the chefs share a true closeness with one another. At the top of each episode, they prepare a family meal together; and at the end, they walk the eliminated contestant out—no member of the tribe left behind. In between, they help each other—through the head-scratching challenge that required the chefs to make a “viral” dish à la Dominique Ansel’s over-hyped cronut or simply tossing out an all-encompassing “heard” to one another. 

Levy’s “nothing should be negative, everything should be supportive” mantra could’ve flamed out in another year. But in 2022, it was a welcome flavor. Food-centered movies and shows skewed especially stressful this year. The Bear became synonymous with kitchen staff screaming matches. The Menu gave fine dining life-or-death stakes. A particularly distressing boat scene in Triangle of Sadness stripped any enjoyment out of seafood for the near future. Bones and All somehow managed to make cannibalism (with Timothée Chalamet!) an unfilling entrée. Even the eating habits of vacationers at The White Lotus morphed into a source of societal strain. 

If those projects are pressure cookers, The Big Brunch is is a crock-pot (its representation on This Is Us notwithstanding)—a slow simmer that builds with each episode until you’re uncharacteristically worried about whether or not Daniel Harthausen, owner of a Korean-Japanese cooking pop-up with hopes to open a brick-and-mortar, will pull off his Soba noodles. Or if Danielle Sepsy, who wants to expand her booming wholesale bakery business, will finish her blueberry white chocolate scones before time runs out. Basically, if you longed for a spinoff series devoted to The Bear’s Original Beef pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) and his impassioned but steady pursuit of the perfect donut—this is it. 

Given the creative confusion of The Great British Baking Show in recent years, there’s been a dearth of comfort-forward cooking shows when the world needs it most. But coming back for seconds could be complicated by the Warner Bros. Discovery merger that’s burning some of HBO’s best titles. Then again, if there’s anything The Big Brunch has taught me—aside from the fact that I’ll never take  another well-constructed bacon-egg-and-cheese for granted–it’s that it can beat the odds stacked against it.