Charlie Trotter, “celebrity” chef and PBS cooking show host.
NYT. Chicago Tribune. Sun-Times.
I never ate at a Trotter restaurant, though I did watch some of “The Kitchen Sessions” on PBS. I think you can make an argument that Trotter was among the first, if not the very first, in the new wave of “celebrity chefs”. My perception is that he was in the public consciousness earlier than Thomas Keller or Grant Achatz, for example. Certainly I was aware of Trotter before I’d heard of Anthony Bourdain (who I’d argue isn’t really a “celebrity chef”, but that’s a digression).
But it also seems that he struggled in the new environment. I remember this NYT profile from 2011 that claimed “Mr. Trotter hardly seems to figure in the national food conversation anymore.” And last year, he closed his restaurant, stating that he wanted to pursue graduate degrees in
“philosophy and political theory”.
He was 54 years old, which seems awfully young to me. I don’t have any evidence to support this theory, but I wonder if he knew his time was short and wanted to wind things down gracefully.
Edited to add: tribute from Jonathan Gold in the LAT: