If you want the meaning of families and life and religion and philosophy rolled into one package, all you need to read is 'The Brothers Karamazov.'
— Charlie Trotter
You can't be afraid to not have everything figured out. There's too much pressure on young people today to have it all figured out when they're in college.
My father was a successful entrepreneur.
I don't understand people who spend their twenties hanging out in bars and going to football game. That stuff is so boring compared to really applying yourself to what you do.
My fantasy is to have a restaurant where there are no written menus, but where you just ask people, 'What are you in the mood for? Fish? Meat? White wine?'
I would always be embarrassed to read out loud in class because I would transpose words and letters and things.
You've got to give away what you love.
I don't want to turn 50 and say, 'Gosh, I wish I'd lived in that part of the world for a time. I wish I'd read that book by Faulkner.' I want time to delve back into Thoreau and Kafka.
I believe in focusing on details.
I've always liked root vegetables because most of them have a natural sweetness. They have a high fructose content, especially when you cook them and caramelize them in a saute pan. Or you can take a turnip and cook it slowly in the oven until it's browned, and it takes on a kind of sweetness. These vegetables are pretty easy to like.
In my case, vertical food was less about standing things up than layering things: more an attempt to gain texture by weaving things together.
In a time when it is common for chefs to simply reproduce the innovations of others, the few who speak for themselves through their food become the skilled artists of their time.
I am actually a very gentle person.
Life's too short. You may be on this planet for 80 years at best or who knows, but you can't just pedal around and do the same thing forever.
Maybe it's good to be traumatized in your youth, to make you think differently and step outside the box. Anybody can be comfortable, but if you get your world rocked, shaken as it were, then maybe it causes you to really go to a whole other level in a different way.
If you ever want to get anywhere in life, you're going to have to push it, and somebody's going to push you to get there. End of story.
My parents couldn't be looser. It was the ultimate laissez faire upbringing.
I took the obligatory economics classes in school, but I've long been a fan of the Milton Friedman philosophy and its libertarian bent: One must be free to do what one wants to do, as long as you don't harm another. This is the seminal treatise on free-market economics.
Excellence is about fighting and pursuing something diligently, with a strict and determined approach to doing it right. It's okay if there are flaws in the process - it makes it more interesting.
If you go around the kitchen and ask my employees what they want to be doing in three to five years, most of them, if they're being honest, will tell you that they don't want to be working for me. They want to have their own place. And I think that's great.
To me, searching for perfection isn't anywhere near as interesting as trying to find your own voice.
Cooking is exactly like making music.
The body cannot produce enzymes in perfect combinations to metabolize your foods as completely as the food enzymes created by nature do. This results in partially digested fats, proteins, and starches that can clog your body's intestinal tract and arteries.
I was always inspired by restaurants like La Tulipe in Manhattan. You'd walk right by and say, 'Oh what a lovely house.' You didn't realize there was a restaurant behind the door.
I don't know how to put this gently, but I'm trying to tackle the biggest question of all, which is the God question.
Ultimately, I want to prepare food that will be recognized equally in Tokyo, London, and Paris. I am after that universality, that transcendence.
It's a lot harder to get people to 'ooh' and 'aah' over beets and carrots than it is to get them to 'ooh' and 'aah' over artichokes or asparagus, and I enjoy being able to take these humble, 'lowbrow' foodstuffs up a few notches and serve them with great exuberance.
If you know what you're doing, you can make a meal happen with any kitchen knife. But using a top-quality knife versus a low-quality one is the difference between driving a Jaguar and a VW Jetta across the country. They'll both get you there. But the Jaguar will give you a much smoother ride.
I have always considered desserts to be of equal importance to the savory food.
Sometimes I think I should have chosen a line of work where it was just me alone in the room, with the sun coming in, and God, insofar as he or she exists, smiling down upon me. Then I would have never been accused of being a tyrant, other than towards myself.
Any fool can be happy. What I'm interested in is satisfaction. There's got to be more to life than just being happy. You've got to be fulfilled. You've got to be satisfied; philosophically satisfied is what I mean.
I have a certain point of view, a certain way to plate food, certain ingredients that I like to use.
I worked in 40 restaurants over a five-year period.
I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool.
I got on a Dostoyevsky kick right after college. I started with 'Crime and Punishment,' went on to 'The Possessed' and then 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'The Idiot.'
At home, a man is entitled to raise his voice maybe once a year, if something really gets under his skin. At work, it's different. I raise my voice all the time. Not out of malice, but to get things right. It's never personal.
If people give me a year or two of their best effort, then I am their friend for life.
I wasn't using college as a stepping stone to law school or some other career. I just wanted a liberal-arts education.
I love faltering. I love, in a sense, coming up short. Because you learn nothing from success. You learn so much from failing.
I timed my previous wife's pregnancy to the moment to have my son born on Bob Dylan's 50th birthday. There is no bigger Bob Dylan fan than me. You don't just time the day and impregnate your wife to get your kid to be born on Bob Dylan's 50th birthday.
The idea that you have to pursue greatness... it's up to you; it's your life.
My plan is to work on a master's in philosophy.
I have a goal so lofty it's almost embarrassing to talk about. And that's to be the best restaurant in the world.
It's a challenge to demonstrate that you can prepare some really interesting food with humble ingredients.
For over 20 years, I have been saying that Chicago is by far one of the greatest food cities in the world.
There has been no great surprise, no sudden revelation. I knew pretty much what I was getting into. What I've learned is that a restaurant can be as much of an art as you want it to be, but it has to be a successful business first.
You know the old adage that the customer's always right? Well, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right.
As tough as I've been on anybody, as hard as I've ever been on anybody, I have been harder on myself. By far.
The most successful food, I think, is food that both appeals to the super-sophisticated diner or foodie and to the lay diner at the same time.
I've always been a little crazy.
