Restaurant Charlie by Charlie Trotter

“Excuse me, can I get a cappuccino with two shots of espresso and very dry on the milk product?”

From the way Chef Charlie Trotter orders a cup of coffee to the way he serves his cuisine, there’s one thing he consistently strives for: excellence – in delivery, service, food, and apparently, the frothiness of his milk.

Trotter’s witty sense of humor and unique ability to articulate all things associated with his restaurant make him a truly unique character. But for Trotter, whose self-titled Chicago restaurant has won a list of awards that reads much like a lengthy French menu, it doesn’t seem to be about what he has done, but rather what he is doing now.

With Restaurant Charlie in The Palazzo, Trotter has joined a plethora of other celebrity chefs who have made Las Vegas part of their respective dining groups. But Trotter stands apart, coming to Vegas with minimal emphasis on a Vegas-ized menu and staying true to his culinary roots.

Trotter is known for originality, as well as using lots of lighter sauces, fruit juices and broths as opposed to heavy cream-based or butter sauces.

“It’s really about the purist tasting possible product we can have,” he explains.

With this motto, Trotter’s cuisine, while having admitted Asian, European and American influences, can best be described as, well, “Trotter’s Cuisine.”

“We have pushed the envelope regarding degustation dining, vegetarian dining, and having Asian / Japanese influence in the food. We were the first restaurant to have a kitchen table, and now it’s sort of a normal thing,” says Trotter.

Indeed, Restaurant Charlie does have a kitchen table that soars above the kitchen while a ballet of choreographed chefs waltz around below, preparing a spontaneous degustation menu du jour.

Additional components of the restaurant include Bar Charlie, “a restaurant within a restaurant.” The counter-style seating offers several tasting menus and much like a sushi bar, Bar Charlie offers dinner, a show and interaction with the chefs.

The Drinks Bar features both modern and vintage pre-prohibition drinks, like the Sazerac, Pisco Sour and the Manhattan. Amazing sangría made fresh and an outstanding wine program are also available.

The main dining area features 20-foot ceilings, a walk-through wine cellar and tranquil ocean-like blues and greens.

Restaurant Charlie marks Trotter’s third restaurant, after his flagship headquarters in Chicago, and Restaurant C in Los Cabos, Mexico. With his business growing, Trotter assures that the quality of Restaurant Charlie will not dwindle.

“I’m not some guy that says ‘okay, let’s open a restaurant’ and I’ll go there three times a year. When we put our name on something, we’re committed to what we do…Not only am I here every week, but I’m on the phone every day,” says Trotter. He also mentions that various other staff from the Chicago restaurant visits Restaurant Charlie on an alternating schedule to ensure the quality and standards of the restaurant.

Trotter also set a little challenge for his fledgling Las Vegas restaurant.

“I’ve thrown down the gauntlet. Your job is if one dines at Restaurant Charlie here, and they’ve also dined at Chicago, they must say, ‘this is better than the Chicago,’ otherwise you have failed,” quips Trotter.

The challenge, made in good humor, struck a chord with the staff at Restaurant Charlie to produce a dining experience that is truly unique.

Restaurant Charlie offers several unique and lengthy tasting menus, but an à la carte menu is also available. Start with appetizers like terrine of Maine skate wing with celery root, pearl onions and seaweed topped with Osetra caviar or warm heirloom beet salad with pickled egg and fragrant chrysanthemum.

Fried spiced globe artichoke with honey, pine nuts and mint serves as a hot appetizer. Seared hamachi and Four Story Hill Farm poularde with Venezuelan chocolate and hazelnut serve as entrée selections.

At Restaurant Charlie, you can eat a multi-course dinner, and not feel overly full. The balance is there, especially when Trotter prepares prix fixe menus.

“When you put together a tasting menu… it’s not about having a list of your greatest hits of dishes, it’s about putting together a sequence, a series of dishes that all make sense in relation to each other. It’s like composing a piece of music, it has to begin and build, and build more, and then crescendo, and then taper… and that’s how we think about composing any tasting menu,” says Trotter.

Trotter and his flagship restaurant have garnered numerous awards from the James Beard Foundation, five stars from the Mobil Travel Guide since 1996 and five diamonds from AAA since 1993. Yet he seems to be in a culinary state of Zen. While humbled by the honors and status among his fellow chefs, his biggest competition seems to come from within.

“It’s not about competition. Our competition is really ourselves...We’re trying to make sure that we get better,” says Trotter.

The same goes for the staff at Restaurant Charlie, under the direction of Matthias Merges, corporate executive chef.

“What I really expect out of my team is that they have standards and expectations for themselves,” says Trotter.

Even so, Trotter admits that he has been obsessed with being number one in the past.

“About 10 years ago I read an interview with the late great Jerry Garcia. [He said] really it’s not about being just number one, it’s about being the only one.  That is, being original and having an original voice and doing something that others haven’t done,” says Trotter.

Everything about Restaurant Charlie is truly phenomenal. Fellow restaurateurs in the industry should take note. Yet, with the opening of Restaurant Charlie, Trotter still seems to be in awe of how he has made it thus far. It’s clear his recipe for success is one part skill, one part diligence, and one part passion for what he does. Trotter sums it up best himself:

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world because I’ve never worked. I don’t have a job. I can’t believe that I’m in the food world, the service world, the hospitality world because [otherwise] I would be doing this for free.”

Perhaps, but if you aren’t the boss, there’s no guarantee the milk product on the cappuccino would be as dry as you would like.

-- Review By Nikki Neu