TV Week: The Bear (Disney+), Crazy Rich Agents: Selling Dream Homes (BBC2), Amazing Hotels: Life Behind The Lobby (BBC One)

We may be in the middle of a cost of living crisis but it seems there’s no lack of appetite for gawping at how the other half live, finds David Hepburn.

Jeremy Allen White is back for season two of The Bear.

Fancy restaurants, opulent mansions and luxurious hotels; few of us are able to afford them these days other than vicariously through the television – and there’s no lack of opportunity this week.

Admittedly The Bear (Disney+) is more concerned with the stresses and strains of the hospitality business than it is with the finished product, but there’s still enough culinary porn on show to have you slinking to the fridge. Last year’s first season was one of the most critically-acclaimed shows of 2022 and the second quickly makes it apparent that the makers are not content with settling for the televisual equivalent of a single Michelin star. We rejoin top chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, played by Jeremy Allen White (and his remarkable arms that have their own dedicated online following), who had previously returned home to Chicago to run his family's Italian beef sandwich shop following the suicide of his older brother. Now the stakes have been raised, with Carmy and his crew of family, friends, frenemies and employees racing to launch a destination eatery against the clock – with every episode opening with an ulcer-inducing countdown to opening night.

There seems to be a general consensus that Succession is the best show of 2023, but despite generating fewer column inches and fake obituaries The Bear is a genuine challenger. If the former offers a satisfying narrative feast, the latter is a spectacular tasting menu with matched wines. Following the straightforward narrative of the opening season, the follow-up takes more risks, happy to add texture to the dish with flashbacks and standalone episodes focusing on individual characters.

Rob Rinder and Monica Galetti are taking a look at some of the planet's most stunning hotels.

Episode six is a particular highlight and must rank as one of the best hours of television in recent years. Entitled ‘Fishes’, it offers a stressful glimpse back to Carmen’s past courtesy of a particularly fraught family Christmas and should come with a trigger warning for those whose festive seasons are complicated by volatile family dynamics. Jamie Lee Curtis puts in an electric performance as the clan’s frazzled matriarch, while fellow Oscar-winner Olivia Coleman pops up in another standout episode where hot-headed (but big-hearted) Taylor Swift stan, Cousin Richie, seeks out his purpose in life by working at one of the best resturants in town. Never has the act of polishing forks dripped with so much meaning.

From imagined dining excess to the real thing in property, the BBC’s new reality talent show Crazy Rich Agents: Selling Dream Homes (BBC2) opens with the classic overhead shots of London familiar to fans of The Apprentice. That’s not where the similarities end, as a bunch of ambitious and shiny business wannabes look to impress the boss. Instead of Alan Sugar’s dubious patronage they are trying to win the favour of head honchos from the wonderfully named ‘Nest Seekers’ – a company dedicated to finding fantastically rich people fantastically expensive mansions. It’s a good idea to keep a calculator handy while watching, such are the remarkable numbers involved. The budding property moguls look disappointed by the mere £3 million valuation of a castle in County Durham (not located in London, hence it may as well be on the moon). It’s a wonder they would get out of bed for the chickenfeed commision – a miserly £90,000. But this is a world where the top earners can earn upwards of £5 million a year by flogging marble-infested status symbols to glassy-eyed multi-millionaire YouTubers called Ianthe. There are the usual hyberbolic statements about just how much they want to succeed. “I’m either going all the way to the top or all the way to the bottom” is one early gem, while the promise to give “one hundred million per cent” would suggest that a grownup should double-check their numbers before any contract is signed.

The winner will have the chance to make it in New York, with access to properties worth a squillion pounds (or thereabouts). The early favourite must be Krishan, a genuinely likeable sociopath with the gift of the gab. This is a man who, when questioned about the awful view from a cramped £2.3million two bed flat (it’s in London), suggests that “if you want a better view you’ll need to live in a tower”, and in an attempt to flog the appartment signs up to an exercise class to chat up heiresses. Such is his confidence, when he reveals that he swapped details with a member of they royal family during a blowout at the Mayfair Club you very nearly believe him.

Of course the genuine stars are the properties. Whether anybody would actually want to live in them is debatable but they look beautiful, particularly an £85 million (London) Knightsbridge Valhalla where the taps cost more than many people earn in a year. The former home of prima ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn, it has hosted the likes of JFK, Princess Margaret and Peter Sellers over the years. Now that’s a fantasy dinner party to savour.

The cast of the BBC's new reality business show, Crazy Rich Agents.

Those who can’t afford a palace may still be able to spend a few nights in one, and such places are the subject of the fifth series of Amazing Hotels: Life Behind The Lobby (BBC One). Celebrity chef Monica Galetti is back on presenting duties, while the professionally-irksome Giles Coren has happily been replaced by the less prickly Rob Rinder. Once again they are visiting some of the world’s most jawdropping places to stay, starting with Kasbah Tamadot set in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains. The first surprise it that it’s actually somewhere you might like to stay – rather than just chortle at – and the duo are genial tour guides, charming everybody from the baker to adventuring gazillionaire owner Richard Branson. Prepare to search for holidays as soon as the closing credits roll.