Although he hung up his apron in 2012, turning the burner off on his 25-year restaurateur career, Trotter’s culinary legacy continues to be a fixture to this great second city and beyond. Restaurateurs to this day are still aspiring to be the next Charlie Trotter’s. To help commemorate the culinary genius, Rebecca Halpern premiered her directorial debut, a heart-rending documentary, “Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter.” This film was selected to be featured as part of this year’s documentary program at the 57th Chicago International Film Festival.
The documentary gives a gut-wrenching, honest take on the James Beard Award-winning, 3-star Michelin rated, pioneer celebrity chef. The Wilmette native who played with our palates and put Chicago on the global menu, redefined everything anyone ever knew about what there is to dining. To his friends and family, he was known as Chuck. To his employees and to the industry he transformed, he was known as Charlie. And to the media and those who didn’t quite understand him, he was a caricature.
His rise to fame was due to his tenacious aim for perfection taking risks that no others were willing to take. He was brand obsessed taking his art to the next level, opening restaurants nationwide and cooking creations across the globe. He published more than a dozen cookbooks and had a television cooking show. He changed his menu weekly and changed the way people dined. He answered to no one and made up his own rules. But his stardom came at a price. The film portrays how Trotter’s identity became homogenized to his work. It’s a cautionary tale of a boy who becomes a man and loses himself by his own ego. It shows what happens when one becomes their own work and what happens when that work goes away—just like how Trotter closed his restaurant doors in 2012 and tragically died the following year.
In the film Trotter mentions his dislike of people, which shows his enigmatic ways as he perfected his craft to please said people. Halpern reveals intimate details of Trotter’s complicated life with new interviews with both loved ones and his rivals and those who loved him and those who respected him. Appearances in the documentary were made by family, former employees, top diners, friends, and celebrated chefs including Grant Achatz, Emeril Lagasse, Carrie Nahabedian, Wolfgang Puck, Norman VanAken and Trotter’s first employee, the late Reginald Watkins.
The film shows never-before-seen family footage, archival filmed interviews, thousands of hand-written letters and postcards, and his first hand-written cookbook. “I grew up in suburban Chicago in the 80s and 90s, before cell phones, the internet and social media,” says director Halpern. “The archival materials in the film are a reminder of that time when connecting with others required effort.” Like his gift of creating an experience at his restaurants, the man put in just that: effort, with a pinch of love and care. “Through Chuck’s correspondence, you can really see the depth of love and care that he poured into everything he did, and it’s that kind of love and connection that we could all use a little more of these days,” she says.
Produced by Oak Street Pictures founder, and the co-founder and former CEO of Lucini Italia, for Renee Frigo, “Love, Charlie” is a tribute to Trotter who was the first to champion her Lucini extra virgin olive oil. “I was inspired to start Oak Street Pictures to secure Charlie’s deserved place in culinary history,” she says. “It is thrilling that “Love, Charlie” will have its world premiere in his hometown.”
This month, the Chicago International Film Festival will hold its 57th edition both in person and virtually.