There are a lot of good chef bio flicks. Two of the most highly acclaimed by the critics will be featured at this year’s Food in Film Festival in San Miguel de Allende. One is “Ellen Brennan: Commanding The Table”. The other is a personal favorite of mine, “Love, Charlie. The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter”.
Written and directed brilliantly by a woman called Rebecca Halpern, “Love, Charlie” is the story of the chef who put Chicago and, in some ways, the United States on the culinary map of the world.
“You have to be critical of what you do every day, to analyze it and be willing to push it further.”
It’s the story of a privileged kid, a guy who drove a fire-engine red MG Midget convertible to school, a guy whose father financed the original Charlie Trotter’s without his son ever running a restaurant or even a kitchen before.
Six months after the doors to that restaurant opened, it was almost impossible to get a table. A few years later, it was deserted.
Through the words of his first wife, his friends and family, and superstar chefs such as Grant Achatz, Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck, we learn about the rise and probable fall of the once freewheeling Chuck who becomes the much more serious Charlie. The film is blessed with having access to countless numbers of letters, cards, photos and old videos that help immensely in telling the tale.
“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.”
Charlie Trotter was one of the first chefs to cater to vegans and vegetarians. He was one of the first to take foie gras off his menu. He was one of the first to move exclusively to tasting menus. He was one of the first, perhaps the very first, to seat people at a table in his kitchen, a feature that I once enjoyed at Aperi in San Miguel de Allende.
“I love faltering. I love, in a sense, coming up short. Because you learn nothing from success. You learn so much from failing.”
What I like most about “Love, Charlie” is it’s paced like a mystery. We know it’s going to happen. We know there’s going to be a downfall. We just don’t know why, where, when or how.
“Love, Charlie. The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter” will be showing at Teatro Santa Ana on Thursday, February 27. Tickets for all of the movies and lectures at Food in Film Festival 2025 are available at https://boletocity.com/tc-events/food-in-film-festival-2025/.
Got me wondering what was his downfall. Such a committed individual!
His restaurant was 7 blocks from my house in Chicago. I had some wonderful meals there. His son Dylan just announced that he will reopen it permanently this year in the same space!
Don day, a special day in our life was going to a football game at Notre Dame on a Saturday and returning to Charlie Trotter in Chicago and eating at the kitchen table. Adaire and I, our daughter Greer, her husband, Andrew, and a good friends who had the ND tickets, rounded out the table of six . Our son-in-law, not a connoisseur of wine wanted a beer Charlie trotters didn’t have beer so the staff we went down the street to, in San Miguel. would call a bodega, bought him a couple of beers.
While, the meal was amazing. The most interesting thing was watching how the chefs paid attention to individual food, allergies of people in the restaurant and how they cleaned the large brass ovens from France when they were through cooking.
Before we left, we got a tour of the wine seller 🥘 on the lower level and the story of an individual that called and asked if Charlie Trotter had a particular bottle of wine. He did, it was a split and it cost $15,000 and this patron flew in just to enjoy that split of white.
An incredible day that is a memory all of us still have today
A wonderful thing to know is that the Food in Film Festival will be donating a portion of the proceeds this year to S.O.M.E. So Others May Eat the weekly luncheon for the elderly at the Parroquia!
Looking forward to the flick. I believe Charlie was a fellow UW Madison alum. Never knew what happened to him . Plan to resist the temptation to Google and wait for the film. Before Charlie was Louis Szathmary who ran The Bakery in a non glitzy section of Chicago. First time I crossed statelines for a fine dinning experience. I think also my first Beef Wellington and snails experience.
Not having seen the movie yet, his downfall was perhaps he took foie gras off his menu? 🤣
His downfall was that he died
Thank you for the well-written article