Contrasting Culinary Journeys

“It felt like I just stepped into a rodeo, and they shut the gate behind me.” That’s how Grant Achatz describes his first day of working in the kitchen of Charlie Trotter’s, then considered one of the world’s finest restaurants. The future 3-Michelin-star Alinea chef was just 21 in the summer of 1995 when he convinced Trotter to give him a shot at his namesake Chicago restaurant. But Achatz did not have a positive experience and left after a few months, moving on to a longer tutelage under Chef Thomas Keller at the French Laundry in Napa Valley. When Achatz returned to Chicago to run his own kitchen, he and Trotter had what Achatz calls an “aggressively competitive” relationship. Trotter closed his restaurant in 2012 and died from a stroke the following year at age 54. Now Achatz—who appears in Rebecca Halpern’s documentary about Trotter, Love, Charlie (as do I)—is presenting a lavish Trotter’s menu at his restaurant Next and reflecting on his relationship with the late chef, whom he thinks hasn’t received proper credit for all the innovative ways he changed fine dining.