A chef is yelling at an underling: “I will kill your whole family if you don’t get this right!” The chef is Charlie Trotter, but he is filmed not at work, but for a scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding; Trotter’s cameo in the 1997 movie played up to his reputation as a tyrannical perfectionist. He opened his eponymous restaurant in Chicago aged 27, swiftly becoming a rock-star celebrity chef. In 2012, Trotter dramatically closed the kitchen on its 25th anniversary and died a year later of a stroke aged 54. This documentary about him is a solid if slightly unsatisfying portrait, lacking real depth or flavour.
Trotter was born into a wealthy family (raised on hotdogs and meatloaf, jokes his mother). Mostly self-taught, he got an education in gastronomy by eating his way around Europe. In 1987 he opened Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, bankrolled by his father, Bob, another workaholic. Trotter desperately wanted to please his dad, who in retirement threw himself into helping make his son’s restaurant a success. Trotter Sr later had misgivings, which he put into a letter advising Charlie to stop bullying kitchen staff (Trotter’s tirades were legendary). The dynamics of their father-son relationship look intriguing but, like a lot about Trotter’s life, questions hover in the air, unasked or unanswered.
The film rattles through talking heads (family, friends, ex-employees, one ex-wife, even Trotter’s most loyal customer) without much poking and prodding. Among the best of the speakers is chef Grant Achatz, mentored by Trotter then ghosted when he left to start his own restaurant Alinea. “I never knew if we were friends or enemies. I think we were both.” When Michelin came to Chicago, Alinea was awarded three stars, Charlie Trotter’s two. If they’d come five or 10 years earlier, it would have been a different story.
In archive interviews, Trotter seems to be playing a version of himself, a caricature like in My Friend’s Wedding, quick with a disparaging quip. “If it weren’t for the customers and the employees,” he says, “the restaurant business would be the greatest business in the world.”
• Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter is on digital platforms from 14 April.
