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. – Charlie Trotter
A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that’s when cuisine is truly exciting. – Charlie Trotter
All four elements were happening in equal measure – the cuisine, the wine, the service, and the overall ambience. It taught me that dining could happen at a spiritual level. – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
It’s a challenge to demonstrate that you can prepare some really interesting food with humble ingredients. – Charlie Trotter
Chefs, as a whole, say yes to any project, fundraiser, or tasting because they have such a generous spirit. – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
I have a goal so lofty it’s almost embarrassing to talk about. And that’s to be the best restaurant in the world. – 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. – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
To me, searching for perfection isn’t anywhere near as interesting as trying to find your own voice. – Charlie Trotter
If people give me a year or two of their best effort, then I am their friend for life. – Charlie Trotter
One must know combinations, one must have a true knowledge of food to be in the moment. – Charlie Trotter
For over 20 years, I have been saying that Chicago is by far one of the greatest food cities in the world. – Charlie Trotter
When I graduated I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn’t want a conventional career. – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool. – Charlie Trotter
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.’ – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
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. – Charlie Trotter
In my case, vertical food was less about standing things up than layering things: more an attempt to gain texture by weaving things together. – Charlie Trotter