Farewell Trotter's - I'll miss you...

Update:  We went back for one final dinner at Trotters, and it was a disaster of Epic proportions.  Of almost Lucas-ian "rewriting your memories" proportions.  The bottom line - I doubt I'll be missing Trotter's much.  C'est la vie...

The Sun-Times reports that Charlie Trotter's is closing after 25 years - definitely the ending of an era in Chicago food culture.  Chicago had fine-dining before him, and there certainly be alta cuisine after him, but he changed the restaurant landscape in America in a way that few have managed to do.  Along with Alice Waters and Thomas Keller, he is one of a select pantheon of chefs who are to restaurant culture what Bill Walsh was to Football, someone whose approach and ideas were so influential that we unquestioningly accept them as part and parcel of the way things are, and whose family tree incorporates pretty much anybody who is anybody on the American food scene.

   Over the years that we lived in Chicago, Nicole and I made it to Trotter's quite a few times, and the experience was never anything less than exceptional.  In this day and age, exceptional food is remarkably easy to come by, exceptional experiences, not so much.  But at Trotter's, you never, ever left without a smile on your face and a warm glow in your heart, the feeling that all was right with a world where you could have spent the last few hours being treated like that.

   In the end, thats what Trotter's has meant to me - the realization that haute cuisine does not have to be cold and sterile, that perfection does not have to be a "paint by the numbers" experience (Yes Tru, I'm looking at you), and that caring about the customer can more than make up for the occasional misfire on the plate (which, anyhow, rarely occurred).
Thank you Charlie, and best wishes on whatever comes next.  I'll miss you...

PostNote:  Couple of things that I recall about Trotter's

• The realization that you must, must avoid the (oh so delightful) bread, if you wished to actually enjoy the later courses.
• The  realization that while each course was a mouthful or two, well, it adds up
• The realization that just when you thought you were done with desert, they brought in the last plate to the refrain of "I can't believe there is another course, and its got three things of chocolate on it, and it is oh so chocolate-y, ohshitohshitohshit"
• Our first waiter (Hi Alan!) who made a point to come by and say "Hi" every time we were there, even if it had been a year or so since the last visit.
• The sky-high bills (for back then, before Alain Ducasse's insanity in New York), which you didn't mind paying!
• The sommeliers who made wine-pairing a gestalt operation, enhancing the food beyond measure.
• Above all, the sheer joy of dining