I’ve eaten about 50,000 meals in my life, give or take a few. I remember the very best one. It was at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago. That restaurant, considered among the very best in America during its 25-year-run, closed last year. The chef and owner, Charlie Trotter, died yesterday at age 54.
According to those who worked for him and with him, Trotter was evidently demanding, and sometimes downright rude. He made a cameo appearance inMy Best Friend’s Wedding as the archetypal psychotic chef.
But what made it into the dining room, and onto a series of 11-plates that summer evening a decade ago, was food that was at once dead serious and utterly whimsical. After we sat down, the maitre’d consulted with us on the tasting menu as if we were making an investment. And I guess we were. When I expressed reservations about a whitefish course, she immediately offered an alternative? “Quail with black truffle?” This was my kind of place.
It seemed somehow appropriate that we began the evening with a snack at one of my other favorite places to eat–Harold’s Chicken Shack in Hyde Park. That’s where I–and reportedly Barack Obama–would slip a few bucks under the bulletproof glass turnstile in exchange for a few pieces of singularly perfect pieces of fried chicken. It was serious food and, surroundings aside, the kind of amuse boucheof which Chef Trotter would undoubtedly have approved.
Back at Trotter’s, each course, with its wine accompaniment, was flawless in a perfect-ingredients-prepared-perfectly kind of way, but there was more than that at work. Before one of the middle courses, the waiter brought out almost comically huge red wine glasses and poured a lovely pinot noir. And then put down a piece of yellowfin tuna that paired perfectly with that red wine, while breaking all of the supposed “rules.” A palate cleansing course offered up a prosecco and a sorbet with chili oil that paired so perfectly you couldn’t tell where the eating stopped and the drinking began. A great meal engages your senses. A Best. Meal. Ever engages your mind and your heart as well.
We were seated next to two older couples who chattered and nattered endlessly about their trip to Kenya and other inanities, largely ignoring the exquisite food. At another time, they could have been an annoyance or even ruined an expensive evening. But everything else was so perfect that it didn’t matter. Before the dessert course, the maitre ‘d stood by their table and announced, with great ceremony, and a wink in our direction, ”And now..a moment of silence.” We almost fell out of our chairs laughing.
The final course was as ballsy as it comes: flourless chocolate cake. Even then a cliche, the Trotter’s pastry chefs took up the challenge of doing CPR on the deadest dessert possible and threw down like Michael Jordan on the break. In yo face, TGIFridays.
We took a tour of the kitchen, so tight we’d watch as tangle of limbs would scramble over a dozen plates and after a few tightly choreographed moves a dozen appetizers would appear as if by magic. We paid the check–almost eight hundred dollars,as I recall. And when I talked about the meal afterwards, as I have on dozens of occasions over the years, that subject would always come up, and even my friend who wears $5,000 watches would have sticker shock.
I always came back to the math. How many meals have you eaten in your life? What’s the best one ever? Is it worth 20 trips to TGIFridays?
I was sad when I heard that the restaurant was closing and we’d never get the chance to re-create that meal in that space. But I always expected that Charlie Trotter the Guy would open another place where you could have a Best. Meal. Ever, and one day my wife and I would try to do just that. When I heard the news and realized that’s never going to happen, I’m so far beyond just sad.
RIP Charlie Trotter.
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