Only the best will do
Charlie Trotter is on a mission to achieve the very best. "I have always looked at it this way," he says. "If you strive like crazy for perfection - an all-out assault on total perfection - at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence has to become a life plan."
The words are taken from his first book, Charlie Trotter's, one of three books he has published so far.
Cooking at the Lanesborough hotel, London, to celebrate US Independence Day, Trotter further emphasises his single-minded focus. "I haven't yet achieved perfection and don't suppose I ever will," he says, "but the beauty is in the journey. It is a travesty that there is so much mediocrity around. I'm constantly striving to find ways to better myself and my product."
Trotter's pursuit of excellence has led him to rip out a perfectly good kitchen in his 68-seat Chicago restaurant, Charlie Trotter's (which can also cater for an additional 34 covers in private dining rooms), replacing it with a state-of-the-art unit, costing $750,000. "It creates a better environment for the cooks, which in turn results in better food," he says. He has also just added a new $100,000 wine cellar to the restaurant, even though the wine list has already won every major wine award going in the USA.
And in the middle of the night, he had the pavement outside the restaurant lifted and landscaped with four pear trees and improved paving - illegally, he admits. "If I had applied to the city for a permit for the work," he explains, "it would have taken two years to be granted and they probably wouldn't have given me the permission. But now it's done, they're not going to touch me."
This month, Charlie Trotter's celebrates its 10th anniversary, an occasion that will be marked by a special dinner at which Trotter will be joined in the kitchen by one of his culinary heroes, Roger Vergé from the Moulin de Mougins, in Mougins, in the south of France.
It has been a remarkable 10 years, in which Trotter has been lauded by every culinary organisation and magazine across the USA. He holds the highest ratings in the country's major guides, the Mobil and the AAA, and has won an Ivy award from Restaurants and Institutions for his outstanding contribution to the US culinary scene.
The restaurant, meanwhile, housed in an unassuming 1908 townhouse, constantly appears in lists of the world's finest restaurants.
From the moment he started cooking in 1982, after graduating in political science from the University of Wisconsin, Trotter single-mindedly set about aiming for the top. Self-taught, he shut himself away in his San Francisco apartment for more than a year, cooking and reading, before embarking on a culinary tour of two- and three-Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe. "I could have become a lawyer or gone into business," he says, "but in discovering cooking, I found a pursuit that was physical and sensual, as well as mentally challenging."
Now aged 38, Trotter's cooking style draws on the techniques and flavours of cultures from around the world. It is rooted in classic French traditions, but is increasingly becoming balanced by Asian minimalism. His use of vegetable juices and broths, infused oils, and light meat and fish reductions forms the heart of many of his dishes, creating a cuisine that is light, but packed with taste.
While Trotter recognises that he is not trying to invent new dishes or combinations of ingredients, he likes to understand and experiment with variations on what has gone before. "For example," he says, "while the French wisely recognise that artichokes and tarragon are good accompaniments to lobster, and would probably serve some well-cooked artichokes and a fennel cream sauce with their lobster, we would barely cook the lobster and serve it with an artichoke salad drizzled with a little fennel juice, then further concentrate the juice, add a little olive oil and spoon it around the dish. The result would be an explosion of flavour."
There is much spontaneity in Trotter's cooking - menus were being rewritten at the Lanesborough right up to the point of service. Subtle elements of the menu in Chicago change daily, so that over the course of two to three weeks a completely new menu will evolve. Just two degustation menus are offered - a grand menu for $90 and a vegetable one for $70. This, Trotter believes, allows the restaurant to highlight the finest and freshest ingredients available, as well as allowing customers to fully experience the range of his creativity.
Over 10 years, Trotter has built up a network of more than 90 farmers and fishermen, purveyors and foragers, supplying the best US ingredients. Much of what he buys is free-range and organic - a route he follows solely for reasons of flavour; any health benefits are a bonus.
Desserts are equally as important as the savoury elements of Trotter's repertoire. "Most of our desserts are based on fresh seasonal fruits and they must provide a logical finale to a menu," he says. "I like desserts to be as pure as possible - after all, what can be nicer than a perfect, sun-ripened peach, just plucked from a tree?"
Trotter will serve the peach, simply sliced on the plate with white pepper lavender ice-cream. Another simple approach comes with a Tahitian vanilla bean yogurt sorbet with strawberries and rhubarb. The rhubarb is poached in a little sugar and combined with sliced fresh strawberries. The sorbet provides an element of richness, while rhubarb chips and oven-dried strawberries emphasise the flavour of the fruit and create an alternative texture.
Today, Trotter is as devoted to the kitchen as ever. While most chefs who get anywhere near Trotter's level of success take a step back from cooking, devoting themselves to the extra-curricular activities increasingly demanded of them, Trotter combines the two elements of his career equally.
By day, from 10am to 6pm, he is the chef-entrepreneur, with several different kinds of project: his books, of which there have been three so far while two more are soon to be published; TV appearances, such as the series The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter; retail food development; or consultancy roles.
By night, from 6pm to 1am, Trotter is back in the kitchen as the chef-operator, doing what he loves most - cooking. He has not missed more than 15 services during the past 10 years, and today still checks more than 90% of plates as they leave the kitchen. "I've got a fantastic staff," he says. "There are 18 in the kitchen, as well as 32 throughout the rest of the business, but I want to oversee the kitchen myself - it gives me great fulfilment."
To enable him to make his recent trip to London, Trotter closed his restaurant for a week, travelling to the Lanesborough with six staff. Charlie Trotter's opens for dinner only, from Tuesday to Saturday evenings, enabling him to travel to New York and San Francisco on Sundays and Mondays, if required.
The books, TV and consultancy work subsidise the restaurant to a great extent - Trotter has to generate sufficient funds to pay for the numerous improvements he believes are necessary to achieve perfection. While the restaurant currently serves 120 customers during the week and 150 covers on Friday and Saturday nights, Trotter would ideally like to serve fewer, say 40 or 50 a night, and charge $1,000 per head. "That way," he says, "we could be really creative and achieve our aims."
What of the next 10 years? Another restaurant seems the logical answer. If there should be one, it would have to offer the same level of excellence as the original Charlie Trotter's - nothing less will do. "Hundreds of people talk to me about restaurant ventures, but only one in 500 mentions excellence. The rest just talk about finance."
It is perhaps heartening to know that Trotter is currently in serious talks with a backer about opening a restaurant in London, and that the person concerned is talking about perfection, not just money. Watch this space.
