The Bear’s Matty Matheson Partners With Detroit’s Standby on a New Summer Menu

Matty Matheson’s Neil Fak in The Bear provides us with much-needed comic relief throughout the chaotic series’ third season, which premiered last month to record-breaking viewership. Soon, the chef, restaurateur, author, and cooking show host will offer Detroiters with a taste of his outsized presence (and food) through a partnership with Standby, the celebrated downtown bar and restaurant. Coming July 19, Matheson — under his Ontario, Canada-based Our House Hospitality Company — will launch a new menu at Standby, featuring dishes like coconut shrimp with jerk mayo, mortadella sliders, Alabama barbecue grilled wings, steak frites au poivre, and a variety of taquitos. A media release teases that more collaborations between the star chef and Detroit establishment are soon to follow. Matheson, who was born in Saint John, New Brunswick in Canada, said in the release that he would frequent the Rust Belt city of Buffalo, New York when he was growing up, where he would hit old diners and hot dog stands and watch punk shows. “I believe that Detroit and Buffalo share many similarities: both are quintessentially American, working-class cities renowned for their storied food culture. I have a lot of respect and admiration for cities like that, and I’m excited to add to the fold of what makes Detroit such an iconic city.” Standby opened in 2015 within the Belt alleyway downtown, followed by a sister bar called the Skip, an outdoor space recessed into the alley. Standby won praise early on for providing visitors with a vast catalog of cocktails, which now range from smoky, spirit-forward concoctions; refreshing and citrusy sips; to more adventurous, savory or vegetal offerings that utilize unique ingredients like celery bitters or caper brine. This latest venture is not Matheson’s first foray into the Detroit community. In collaboration with the Library Street Collective founder and Standby partner Anthony Curis, the chef played a role in the establishment of a skate park designed by skateboarding icon Tony Hawk and artist McArthur Binion, as part of Little Village and the Shepherd, a new 3.5-acre cultural corridor anchored by the space formerly occupied by Good Shepherd Catholic church in Detroit’s East Village neighborhood. The park sits a block away from one of the chef’s other ventures, Matheson Cookware.