Twenty-five years after he first arrived in Chicago to pay his dues as a younger chef in Charlie Trotter’s famed Lincoln Park kitchen, Curtis Duffy is feeling brutally trustworthy.
On a current Friday afternoon, the tall and tattooed Duffy strikes round his Fulton Market restaurant, Ever. When he got down to inform his story within the forthcoming memoir “Fireproof” together with his good friend and co-author Jeremy Wagner, the Michelin-starred Duffy’s solely stipulation was that it inform the unvarnished reality.
The deeply private e book, out Aug. 5 (Lifeless Sky Publishing), begins with childhood and household trauma. Duffy doesn’t shy from writing concerning the tragic day when his father killed his mom after which himself. Nor does he maintain again on his time in a few of Chicago’s most esteemed kitchens or his emotions about his restaurant’s star activate FX’s “The Bear” — and rumors that he himself impressed Jeremy Allen White’s character (“It isn’t me,” he says).
Now Duffy is trying to the longer term and setting his sights past Chicago, the town that has outlined the highs and lows of his culinary profession.
By the point the Ever kitchen workers recordsdata in to prep for that night time’s service, Duffy has already swum a few miles as a part of his coaching for an upcoming Ironman. The newly 50-year-old now spends much less time overseeing the day-to-day operations of the kitchen. However nonetheless, he says, “I’m a working chef.”
“I wish to have my palms in — actually all the things. Significantly throughout service, I wish to be within the kitchen, plating meals,” Duffy stated, taking a seat in a newly revamped house off After, the late-night lounge that he opened subsequent to Ever in 2022. Right here, company can spin data, a few of which have been pulled from Duffy’s personal assortment.
“I’ve shifted a lot of my route out of the kitchen to have the ability to assist develop the enterprise, and once you try this, you begin to lose that connection,” he stated. “It’s crucial that I nonetheless have a finger on the heartbeat of the kitchen. That’s the one a part of this enterprise that brings me actually full pleasure … If I lose that, then it’s like, what am I doing?”
“That doesn’t outline who I’m”
Duffy first acquired the style for kitchen life as a teen, when he started working in a diner in his tiny Ohio hometown, Johnstown. The diner — and the $15 a day it paid — had been a respite from his chaotic, typically violent, residence life. Within the household’s small condo, Duffy slept for years on the ground of his mother and father’ closet.
Across the time he completed highschool and was enrolled in a culinary program at Ohio State College, his mom, Jan, left his father, Robert, who was often called “Bear.” In September 1994, when Duffy was 19, Bear kidnapped Jan from her job at an area grocery retailer. He then held her hostage in a 10-hour standoff that ended when Bear shot Jan, then himself.
It’s right here that Duffy begins “Fireproof.” Why begin the e book there? “It’s a technique to seize any person’s consideration instantly,” Duffy stated evenly. “That doesn’t outline who I’m, however it’s actually a big a part of my historical past and my story. However there’s much more to me than simply that, and I believe the e book captures who I’m.”
The main points of his early years have been instructed earlier than, within the 2015 documentary that follows Duffy as he opens his now-defunct restaurant Grace. However, the e book is an opportunity to inform his story on his personal phrases — and to place a few of his demons to relaxation.
“It’s a pleasant technique to simply let it go lastly and simply be at peace,” stated Duffy, a dad or mum to 2 teenage daughters from his earlier marriage and two stepchildren together with his spouse Jennifer.
“The best culinary vacation spot”
Duffy arrived at Charlie Trotter’s namesake restaurant in 2000. By his personal account, he was a shy 20-something who mastered the fundamentals whereas working within the kitchen at a personal golf course in Ohio.
Like many cooks of his era, Duffy idolized Trotter. {The teenager} with huge ambitions studied Trotter’s cookbooks and scoured the early web for something he may discover on him.
“I used to be obsessed,” Duffy writes in his e book. “He was my meals hero.” However the studying curve was steep and Trotter’s kitchen was managed chaos, Duffy stated, “like 20-30 ants in a small jar, simply making an attempt to get out, climbing over one another.”
After coaching beneath all-time greats like Charlie Trotter and Grant Achatz, Duffy grew to become the chief chef at Avenues contained in the Peninsula lodge. It was right here that Duffy met Michael Muser, who was his enterprise associate for greater than 15 years till the duo went their separate methods just a few months in the past.
Jean Lachat/Chicago Solar-Instances
Some cooks even stated the working circumstances had been abusive. In 2003, chef Beverly Kim led a category motion lawsuit in opposition to Trotter, alleging that salaried cooks had been compelled to work unpaid time beyond regulation, the Chicago Tribune reported. Duffy’s identify was among the many plaintiffs, though he maintains that he doesn’t keep in mind signing on. (“I nonetheless consider Charlie as I did after I was in my early 20s working there. It’s a really nearly childlike mentality of this man on the pedestal,” he stated.)
From Trotter’s, Duffy went to work for chef Grant Achatz, first at Trio in Evanston, then serving to Achatz launch Alinea, the three-Michelin star restaurant that burst onto the scene in 2005 and reimagined American nice eating. Prepared to guide his personal kitchen after years as an apprentice to the greats, Duffy left Alinea to be the chief chef at Avenues contained in the Peninsula Lodge. In 2010, it earned two Michelin stars. But it surely wasn’t till Grace, which Duffy and his longtime enterprise associate Michael Muser opened in 2012, that he actually acquired to form his personal model of nice eating.
Utilizing components of molecular gastronomy, Duffy calls his fashion of cooking “thoughtful-progressive” with a concentrate on seasonal, high quality components; on the web page, he waxes poetic about his love for the flexibility of fennel. You gained’t see a inexperienced bell pepper (his mother compelled him to eat them as a child) or shrimp (he’s allergic) on his menu.
In 2014, Grace earned three Michelin stars, becoming a member of Alinea as the one different three-starred spot then in Chicago. However the candy success soured: Financially, Grace had been backed by Chicago actual property investor Michael Olszewski (whom Duffy refers to within the e book as “Dolos” — a mythological Greek determine, identified for trickery). By the autumn of 2017, in response to Duffy, the working relationship with Olszewski had “deteriorated abysmally.” He and Muser tried to purchase the restaurant however failed, and in December 2017, Olszewski fired Muser. Duffy later walked away and Grace closed for good. (Reached this week, Olszewski stated he made the choice to shut Grace as a result of “it wasn’t a very good match anymore.” He stated he supposed to promote to Duffy and Muser, however the potential purchaser who would have put up cash for the sale backed out.)
Within the e book, Duffy writes intimately about his good friend, the chef Thai Dang, and the way Dang’s former restaurant Embeya was defrauded by one of many homeowners. Like Duffy, Dang has discovered his manner again to the kitchen. Collectively together with his spouse, Danielle, Dang opened the Vietnamese restaurant HaiSous in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, which Duffy says is one among his favourite eating places within the metropolis.
Duffy additionally provides props to Pequod’s Pizza, says he’s loopy about Proxi, the Asian seafood spot within the West Loop, and has been frequenting Tiparos in Previous City for his or her coconut rooster tom kha gai soup for practically twenty years.
“I regard Chicago as the best metropolis on the planet — and the best culinary vacation spot as properly,” Duffy writes. “It has develop into a must-visit meals vacation spot … with an keen and ravenous clientele of each residents and vacationers that means that you can — certainly, expects you to — categorical your self and observe the muse. They don’t need ‘secure’ — and neither do I.”
Duffy’s Fulton Market restaurant, Ever, opened in 2020. It was his comeback after his first restaurant, Grace, closed in 2017, regardless of having three Michelin stars. Now, Duffy says he’s nonetheless hungry to reclaim that third star at Ever, which has been acknowledged by Michelin with two stars since 2021.
“The subsequent chapter of success”
Ever opened its doorways within the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Duffy now says was “extremely loopy.” As soon as once more, Chicago embraced him: Out of the gate, Ever earned two stars from the Michelin Information in 2021.
Unexpectedly, one other enhance got here when the group behind FX’s hit kitchen present “The Bear” highlighted Ever in its second season. Cousin Richie (actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach) trains in a fictitious model of Ever within the now-famous episode “Forks,” which was shot in Ever’s real-world kitchen.
Now, Duffy is trying to the longer term. Earlier this 12 months, he and Muser parted methods professionally, which Duffy chalked as much as a distinction in ambitions.
“I needed to proceed to develop, and I felt like the sentiments weren’t the identical,” he stated. “It was simply time to go our separate methods and see what we will do with out one another.”
Muser couldn’t be reached by WBEZ for remark. On Instagram in February, he wrote, “Chef Duffy and I’ve labored collectively and supported one another for greater than 15 years. However now’s the time for me to observe my very own ambitions and endeavors.”
What does come subsequent for Duffy? Extra eating places, cookbooks and a brand new documentary set to come back out subsequent 12 months, he stated.
“I need to proceed mentoring and making an attempt to get a few of these youthful guys beneath the umbrella of eating places that we personal and so they additionally personal,” Duffy stated. “I believe that’s going to be the following chapter of success.”
He’s additionally eyeing alternatives to open up eating places in Florida, the place he now spends a part of his time together with his Miami-based spouse and stepchildren. For essentially the most half, Duffy stated it’s not about him anymore. “I’ve achieved nearly all the things that I’ve needed to realize within the restaurant world,” he stated.
Nevertheless, there may be nonetheless one factor that he’s hungry for. Slightly below his proper pinky, Duffy has three Michelin stars tattooed in crimson. The ink is a nod to the respect that was awarded to him at Grace.
It’s additionally a continuing reminder of what he’s nonetheless chasing.
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and tradition reporter at WBEZ.
