Mentor Chef & Monster Chef

For evidence that supporting the development of others will get you further in your own career, you need only examine the experience of three of the best chefs in Chicago, who also happen to be among the best chefs in the world. Grant Achatz and Curtis Duffy are chefs who experienced the best of mentors who supported their careers. Each rose to the top of their profession. They also experienced the worst of mentors. They found him in a single chef who, while having all the talent and recognition of a world renowned chef, never reached the pinnacle of his profession that his protégés attained when they sought other guides to help them realize their enormous potential.

In 2015 Curtis Duffy’s restaurant Grace was awarded the highest distinction in the culinary world, the coveted three Michelin stars. At the time there was only one other restaurant in Chicago with that distinction, and just 11 in the entire U.S. Duffy knew the other Chicago restaurant on the list well, he served as a young chef there. That restaurant was Alinea, where star chef Grant Achatz was at the helm.

Besides reaching the top of their profession, Achatz and Duffy had something else in common. Each had trained under the original Chicago celebrity chef, Charlie Trotter. Trotter was a legend in the culinary world. Almost from the moment he opened his eponymous restaurant, Trotter received praise as one of, and possibly, the best restaurant in Chicago, and one of the best in the world. Gradually, though, that distinction eroded. By the time Trotter closed his restaurant in 2012, while still among the best, it was very clearly surpassed by Achatz, who blossomed outside of Trotter’s kitchen with the first three Michelin star restaurant in the city.

It was not Trotter’s nurturing style that helped Achatz and Duffy reach the pinnacle of the culinary world. To hear them describe Trotter, he did not possess a nurturing bone in his body. In reflecting on his experience with Trotter, Duffy said, “Do I respect him as a person? No. I dealt with him for three years. He’s a monster.”[1]

Achatz could tolerate even less time with Trotter. Achatz thought he had scored a coup after graduating from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America by securing a coveted position at Trotter’s. He decided to leave after less than a year. Trotter responded by telling Achatz, “if you leave now, there will be no record that you ever worked here. You won’t amount to anything.”[2] He described Trotter as “a master manipulator. He could get inside your head and make you move like a little puppet, however he wanted.” And the team environment Trotter fostered? “Cutthroat”, in Achatz’s words. “The cooks wanted to sabotage you. They wanted to see you fail. There was no teamwork”. Achatz said the experience “made me question everything about cooking. Maybe I made the wrong decision? Maybe I’m not good at this?”

Achatz’ s confidence in his skills rebounded under a true mentor in Thomas Keller, a man who, unlike Trotter, has been a longtime three Michelin star chef. When Achatz first visited Keller’s restaurant in California, the French Laundry, he asked the man mopping the floor if the chef was in. The man replied, “yes, I’m Thomas.” Achatz said of the unusual introduction to the man who became his new boss that “it was such a departure from Charlie’s management style, to some guy who was the only one in the kitchen, mopping the floor.”

Achatz was allowed to cultivate his own ideas at The French Laundry. Keller even encouraged him to learn from other great chefs, arranging for Achatz to spend time at Ferran Adria’s El Bulli in Spain, considered the number one restaurant in the world. When Achatz returned and presented Keller with a dish that won high praise from his mentor, Achatz said that, “for a young cook, that puts your confidence at a level that, you’re just invincible at that point.”

With his confidence restored, Achatz went on to chef at a prestigious Chicago restaurant where he was assisted by Duffy. Achatz would subsequently be the mentor to Duffy that he had found in Keller.

Achatz opened Alinea opened with Duffy on his team. Duffy had enormous confidence and potential despite a traumatic background. Duffy discovered cooking in middle school with a home economics teacher who felt he found a place to escape what was going on in his home. He pursued cooking with a passion in his Ohio hometown, but his family life never stabilized. Shortly after graduating high school he was summoned by the police to join them outside his father’s house. Inside, his father had his mother hostage. Hours later his father would murder his mother and kill himself. Subsequently moving to Chicago, he continued his culinary journey, encountering first the monster, then the mentor.

After several years of guidance under Achatz, followed by a prestigious head chef position, Duffy decided to open his own restaurant. The anticipation in Chicago before its opening was unprecedented. This would perhaps be the restaurant that would top Alinea as the best in Chicago. In contrast to Trotter, Achatz welcomed the prospect. “He needs to bump me out. He needs to surpass me.” Achatz said of Duffy. “I’m OK with that. As the mentor, if the protégé doesn’t surpass the mentor, the mentor didn’t do that good of a job. If [he achieves] a status that is higher than what Alinea has achieved, I win too.”

In saying that he “wins” by being “bumped out” by his protégé, Achatz expresses a seemingly paradoxical thought. Similar paradoxes show up in other forums as well. I’ve written about Norwegian Olympic skiers who are in intense competition with each other, yet “share everything they know”. And that leads to their own success. 

The real irony is that, by not developing your protégé to be the best he or she can be, you limit your own success, as Trotter did. If you are privileged with attracting the best talent in the world, as Trotter clearly was, you will not fully realize the benefits they bring and can provide to you when you impede their growth. Then, too soon, they will leave you for the true mentors who nurture them.

[1] Interview with Curtis Duffy from the movie For Grace - A documentary about Curtis Duffy and Grace Restaurant.”

[2] Interview with Grant Achatz from the Netflix documentary series Chef’s Table, Season 2, Episode 1

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