Michael Washburn
"It's like the way Miles Davis would play 'Stella by Starlight' for three years, but every time it sounded different. In a sense it's a different song, but you can recognize its genesis from the idea of the original composition. That's what I mean when I say that I create food like music." --Charlie Trotter
With his eponymous restaurant in Chicago's Near North Side, Chef Charlie Trotter has cemented the city's reputation as a gastronomical hot spot. Recently, Detours Assistant Editor Michael Washburn spoke with Trotter about his life and work. Trotter offers wide-ranging insights into the role of his restaurant in the community, America's food traditions, and his improvisational cooking technique.
In your opinion, what is the relationship between Americans and their culinary/food traditions?
What relationship? I'm kidding. The relationship harks back to the country's ethnic origins, to the pockets of different people in different cities in various parts of the country. In the beginning they exclusively ate the food that grandmother fed them from Ireland or Sicily, but now we have system where it is much more of a hodge-podge, a fusion. People are fluent in their understanding that "tonight I'll have Chinese food, tomorrow I'll have Italian food." And you can find all of these things in the mall. We have a funny relationship with food.
How do you see Charlie Trotter's in light of this? Do you see the restaurant and your cuisine as rooted in this type of American tradition or as a dynamic departure from American tradition?
I get my version of food by studying the most refined cuisines in the world that pair well with wine. Our cuisine is rooted in the Western European tradition, but my own interests are more Asian and minimalist; I incorporate those elements. So from one recognizable standpoint the food I prepare has its genesis in the Western European tradition. But I approach it with an Asian minimalist aesthetic that includes such things as pristine seafood--raw or barely cooked--and small portions. That said, I've never worked in a French restaurant. Isn't that the American way? Who the hell knows what I'm doing. If I'm going to be successful, the food needs to appeal to an extremely sophisticated diner and a lay diner simultaneously, the way great music may work. Connoisseurs and lay-people will have different experiences, but I want to create an overall dining experience that can be appreciated by those distinct types of people. That said, I like to prepare food that, on any given day, I'd like myself. Food that I am so excited about that I can't wait to serve; food that makes me beside myself with glee, so caught up in the emotional and intellectual experience that I want to produce.
In doing research for this interview I noticed that dialogue plays an important part in how you conceive of your work. Dialogue exists between food and wine, between the restaurant and the community in which it is embedded, and even between the chef and the recipe. How do you see Charlie Trotter's engaged in dialogue with its surrounding community? Chicago? Illinois in general?
I think Charlie Trotter's is several things. We're very much entrenched and embedded in the local community, but what we do is laid out on an international stage. Over fifty percent of our visitors are from outside of Chicago. They come from all over the world, literally making a trip in order to visit the restaurant. People will orchestrate a four-day trip with the restaurant as its primary reason. But we will always be a local restaurant because we are in Chicago and we take pride in being a Chicago entity. We are immersed in charitable and philanthropic work. We host a Culinary Education Program three nights a week and have Chicago Public School students attend. They tour the restaurant, have a meal, and then hear from some staff members about how they try to pursue excellence. Then we go around the room and field questions from the students. It has nothing to do with recruiting, but it's to show what passion, intensity, humility, and teamwork are about. You see yellow school buses vying for parking space with stretch limousines and students tumbling out of the door giddy with excitement. Very few restaurants charge $200 per person and then have a special program for high school students. That is a large part of the restaurant's community engagement: we hope to affect some change and be a part of the community.
And would you say that food also serves as a way for cultures to engage each other in dialogue?
Absolutely, food does that. People seeking out more information about food and learning more about it is a wonderful way to learn about cultures. Geography? Economy? How things develop in a country? I can study the food of South America and learn all of the above. It's a great way to introduce yourself into a community.
You recently caused quite a stir by announcing your imminent retirement and saying that you were dealing with an intellectual void. You obviously haven't sheathed the knife yet. How have you managed to satisfy your intellectual cravings?
I still sometimes have the feeling "what else is there?" I enjoy what I do, but many of the great books are unread still. When can I get to them? I just try to juggle my time and try to find time to devote to the life of the mind. I also have to deal with the responsibility of employing 100 people. If I closed the restaurant, a lot of talented, hard working people would be out of luck. I have to look at it that way and weigh those things against each other.
So to combine work with the life of the mind, who would be on your "most desired dinner guests in history" list?
Dostoevsky. He's my favorite writer. It would be fascinating to serve him food. I might put Nietzsche on that list. I might put someone like Werner Herzog on the list. There are lots of possibilities; maybe some of the great chefs.
You have stated that you would eventually like to do away with menus at Charlie Trotter's, only providing them after the meal as a "souvenir" of one's dining experience. Other pieces in this issue of Detours dwell on the capacity for food to evoke strong memories and even serve as a way to compose one's identity. What do you think is required for a meal to become an experience that generates such strong memory impressions?
Well, there are different kinds of dining experiences. Sometimes you just want comfort food, the food you grew up eating--the Proustian meal, whether a madeleine or your mother's chicken noodle soup. On the other hand, food in certain restaurants serves as a catalyst for change. Those restaurants are challenging and on a different level, and their influence trickles down. A certain chef does something and it is experienced indirectly later, giving an experience that is truly striking and truly memorable. I think we're the latter type of restaurant.
Our version of comfort food is "Trotter's to Go," our take-out place. We're living in a time when people don't have time to cook or they don't want to cook. We have our first cooking-illiterate generation coming up. But even these people know more about food than ever before, they are fluent in a number of cuisines and they demand quality. So "Trotter's to Go" is home meal replacement for those people that don't have time but they want to get the same quality, care, and attention to detail.
You've been a vocal skeptic of genetically modified food. How do you think using these items as key ingredients affects our relationship with our tables?
That is one of those subjects I have mixed feelings about. It's not so cut-and-dry as saying "all genetically modified food is bad." I think if we are doing things to grow food that is more nutritious and more economical and it allows us to feed people that can't feed themselves then there might be something noble in it. But splicing arctic char genes and strawberries to extend the season is a different story. There are consequences we are not sure of yet.
You've often stated that you cook in a manner similar to jazz improvisation. What do you mean by this? If you are working within the parameters of a "composition," how much fidelity must you have to that composition?
None and a lot at the same time. You have to have a disciplined understanding of what the music is, what the cuisine is, of what goes together and what doesn't. I have to have an understanding of a classical repertoire. From there I can depart and work in the moment to do something on a whim. You can prepare 40 dishes from six ingredients. It's like the way Miles Davis would play "Stella by Starlight" for three years, but every time it sounded different. In a sense it's a different song, but you can recognize its genesis from the idea of the original composition. That's what I mean when I say that I create food like music.
Do you remember the first thing you ever cooked?
I think the first thing I did was more along the lines of baking. Then later on I got more involved. I had a cookbook containing recipes from great literature--children's literature. I think "Mad Hatter Meatballs" was my first signature dish when I was 12. But I was far from becoming a chef; I had no dreams or ambitions to be a chef.
