Chicago chef Charlie Trotter had become such a culinary superstar in the 1990s that when the producers of the Julia Roberts romantic comedy "My Best Friend's Wedding" were looking for someone to play a temperamental chef, they cast Trotter. .
"I'm going to kill your whole family if you don't do it right," Trotter yells at an attendee. "I need this perfect!"
Whether you have lived long enough to remember the meteoric rise, long reign and tragic fall of Charlie Trotter, or are only vaguely familiar or completely unaware of Trotter's legacy, the documentary "Love, Charlie" stands as the ultimate look. in the life and times of man. Neither hagiography nor cold plate, this is a solidly researched, well-photographed, and sharply edited film that chronicles Trotter's life with journalistic integrity, while providing fascinating glimpses into the "foodie" culture of the day, in Chicago and around the world. world.
Director: Rebecca Halpern
Writer: Rebecca Halpern
Stars: Grant Achatz, Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse
Talented Chicago director Rebecca Halpern sets the tone for "Love, Charlie" with footage of Trotter being miked for an interview and noting, only jokingly, "My philosophy has always been, if it wasn't for the employees and it was." For customers, the restaurant business would be the biggest business in the world. And basically, I hate people."
Except when he loved them. “Love, Charlie” paints a complex and nuanced portrait of a man who could be a hopeless romantic, who mentored dozens upon dozens of talented youngsters, who is lauded as a wonderful friend and devoted father, but who could also be enigmatic, mercurial, temperamental, and dismissive of anyone he felt could not meet his impossibly high standards.
Writer-director Halpern crafts the story chronologically, drawing on 8mm home movie footage of Trotter's happy and comfortable childhood on the North Shore; clips of Trotter making television appearances with the likes of Julia Child and Gordon Ramsay and doing his magic in the kitchen, and interviews with his mother, his sister, his first wife, and a host of renowned colleagues .
We follow the path of young Chuck Trotter as he finds work at restaurants like Ground Round in Wilmette and the Monastery in Madison, Wisconsin, where he attended the University of Wisconsin and met his first wife, Lisa Ehrlich. After working in restaurants in San Francisco and Florida, Trotter eventually returned to Chicago, where in 1987 he told his father, recently retired businessman Bob, that he was ready to open his own restaurant. With Bob as financial backer, Chuck opened Charlie Trotter's.
The concept was a 10-course tasting menu, with "no focal point [since] everything is built," explains Trotter. This was an innovative approach for the mid-1980s, and Charlie Trotter's was an immediate sensation, drawing crowds every night and winning media praise. "He was the first American kid to open a great restaurant, to be really fearless, to invent new things, to do new things," says Wolfgang Puck.
We see footage of controlled chaos in the kitchen and learn of Trotter's unwavering determination, which eventually cost him his first marriage. A colleague recalls Trotter saying, “Some chefs have great marriages and some chefs have great restaurants. I want to have a great restaurant.”
Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Charlie Trotter's remained an international sensation, with patrons from around the world and Trotter expanding his empire to include restaurants in Las Vegas and Cabo, an exclusive line of gourmet organic produce. and more than a dozen books. Unfortunately, however, a letter that Trotter's father Bob had written to him a year before Bob's death, warning his son of his temper and demanding ways, turned out to be prophetic. A revolving door of employees would come out when they couldn't stand the figurative heat in the kitchen.
In 2003, overworked employees who hadn't been compensated for long hours filed a class action lawsuit and received a total of more than $700,000 in back wages, but anyone who took a piece of the settlement was essentially dead to death. Trotter. “Charlie was the hardest on himself,” says Emeril Lagasse. "if mediocrity was in the air, he was going to destroy it."
Watch Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter Movie Trailer
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