Matty Matheson Swears He Can't Live Without This Ingredient - Exclusive

For avid food lovers who are not professional cooks, it may be too difficult to choose which ingredient is your top kitchen staple. One week it may be avocados; the next week it may be eggs or barbecue sauce. Especially if you watch shows like "MasterChef," "Hell's Kitchen," or "The Bear," your food and ingredient preferences can change on a dime. That's why Tasting Table turned to Matty Matheson, culinary consultant for "The Bear," to see which ingredient is worth naming as your favorite.

The Canadian chef is no stranger to the restaurant business — he owns both Matty's Patty's Burger Club and Prime Seafood Palace in Toronto. When Tasting Table's sister site, Mashed, spoke with him at the New York Times Food Festival, Matheson revealed the one ingredient he can't live without and how his work on "The Bear" hit series influenced his cooking. During his time on the show, Matheson made his way from a food consultant to also playing the show's comedic handyman, Neil Fak. But though he had a lot of new experiences with the hit summer series, he still turns to a very familiar ingredient to add flavor to his meals.

As a culinary consultant, Matty Matheson is a big reason why "The Bear" receives praise for its accuracy, as he helped curate recipes and decide what food should be showcased in scenes with the main character, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White). But Matheson also told Mashed which ingredient is a staple in his own recipes: "Salt. Because it makes everything taste better." It's a fitting choice — salt and pepper is an iconic seasoning duo that will never fail to upgrade a meal.

Matheson added that "The Bear" has influenced his cooking in his everyday life, saying, "Everything adds to your culinary DNA, the whole experience of it." Though most of his prior career centered around French food due to his Canadian upbringing, the food connoisseur described learning about Italian-American food beside the show's other culinary consultant, Courtney Storer, as a "really amazing thing." If only we could be on that set ourselves to try out Carmy's infamous Italian beef!

Though that may be only a dream for now, Season 2 has been confirmed and is set to come sometime in 2023. That means we'll likely see more of Matheson soon — and maybe we'll even catch some salt thrown into Carmy's dishes on screen.

Head to Matty Matheson's Instagram page to keep up with his current projects, or learn more about "The Bear" on FX's website.