Twenty-five years after he first arrived in Chicago to pay his dues as a young chef in Charlie Trotter’s famed Lincoln Park kitchen, Curtis Duffy is feeling brutally honest.
On a recent Friday afternoon, the tall and tattooed Duffy moves around his Fulton Market restaurant, Ever. When he set out to tell his story in the forthcoming memoir “Fireproof” with his friend and co-author Jeremy Wagner, the Michelin-starred Duffy’s only stipulation was that it tell the unvarnished truth.
The deeply personal book, out Aug. 5 (Dead Sky Publishing), starts with childhood and family trauma. Duffy does not shy from writing about the tragic day when his father killed his mother and then himself. Nor does he hold back on his time in some of Chicago’s most esteemed kitchens or his feelings about his restaurant’s star turn on FX’s “The Bear” — and rumors that he himself inspired Jeremy Allen White’s character (“It is not me,” he says).
Now Duffy is looking to the future and setting his sights beyond Chicago, the city that has defined the highs and lows of his culinary career.
By the time the Ever kitchen staff files in to prep for that night’s service, Duffy has already swum a couple of miles as part of his training for an upcoming Ironman. The newly 50-year-old now spends less time overseeing the day-to-day operations of the kitchen. But still, he says, “I’m a working chef.”
“I like to have my hands in — really everything. Particularly during service, I like to be in the kitchen, plating food,” Duffy said, taking a seat in a newly revamped space off After, the late-night lounge that he opened next to Ever in 2022. Here, guests can spin records, some of which have been pulled from Duffy’s own collection.
“I’ve shifted so much of my direction out of the kitchen to be able to help grow the business, and when you do that, you start to lose that connection,” he said. “It’s very important that I still have a finger on the pulse of the kitchen. That’s the one part of this business that brings me really complete joy … If I lose that, then it’s like, what am I doing?”
“That doesn’t define who I am”
Duffy first got the taste for kitchen life as a teenager, when he began working in a diner in his tiny Ohio hometown, Johnstown. The diner — and the $15 a day it paid — were a respite from his chaotic, often violent, home life. In the family’s small apartment, Duffy slept for years on the floor of his parents’ closet.
Around the time he finished high school and was enrolled in a culinary program at Ohio State University, his mother, Jan, left his father, Robert, who was known as “Bear.” In September 1994, when Duffy was 19, Bear abducted Jan from her job at a local grocery store. He then held her hostage in a 10-hour standoff that ended when Bear shot Jan, then himself.
It’s here that Duffy begins “Fireproof.” Why start the book there? “It’s a way to grab somebody’s attention right away,” Duffy said evenly. “That doesn’t define who I am, but it’s certainly a large part of my history and my story. But there’s a lot more to me than just that, and I think the book captures who I am.”
The details of his early years have been told before, in the 2015 documentary that follows Duffy as he opens his now-defunct restaurant Grace. But, the book is a chance to tell his story on his own terms — and to put some of his demons to rest.
“It’s a nice way to just let it go finally and just be at peace,” said Duffy, a parent to two teenage daughters from his previous marriage and two stepchildren with his wife Jennifer.
“The greatest culinary destination”
Duffy arrived at Charlie Trotter’s namesake restaurant in 2000. By his own account, he was a shy 20-something who mastered the basics while working in the kitchen at a private golf course in Ohio.
Like many chefs of his generation, Duffy idolized Trotter. The teenager with big ambitions studied Trotter’s cookbooks and scoured the early internet for anything he could find on him.
“I was obsessed,” Duffy writes in his book. “He was my food hero.” But the learning curve was steep and Trotter’s kitchen was controlled chaos, Duffy said, “like 20-30 ants in a small jar, just trying to get out, climbing over each other.”
After training under all-time greats like Charlie Trotter and Grant Achatz, Duffy became the executive chef at Avenues inside the Peninsula hotel. It was here that Duffy met Michael Muser, who was his business partner for more than 15 years until the duo went their separate ways a few months ago.
Jean Lachat/Chicago Sun-Times
Some chefs even said the working conditions were abusive. In 2003, chef Beverly Kim led a class action lawsuit against Trotter, alleging that salaried chefs were forced to work unpaid overtime, the Chicago Tribune reported. Duffy’s name was among the plaintiffs, although he maintains that he doesn’t remember signing on. (“I still think of Charlie as I did when I was in my early 20s working there. It’s a very almost childlike mentality of this guy on the pedestal,” he said.)
From Trotter’s, Duffy went to work for chef Grant Achatz, first at Trio in Evanston, then helping Achatz launch Alinea, the three-Michelin star restaurant that burst onto the scene in 2005 and reimagined American fine dining. Ready to lead his own kitchen after years as an apprentice to the greats, Duffy left Alinea to be the executive chef at Avenues inside the Peninsula Hotel. In 2010, it earned two Michelin stars. But it wasn’t until Grace, which Duffy and his longtime business partner Michael Muser opened in 2012, that he really got to shape his own brand of fine dining.
Using elements of molecular gastronomy, Duffy calls his style of cooking “thoughtful-progressive” with a focus on seasonal, quality ingredients; on the page, he waxes poetic about his love for the versatility of fennel. You won’t see a green bell pepper (his mom forced him to eat them as a kid) or shrimp (he’s allergic) on his menu.
In 2014, Grace earned three Michelin stars, joining Alinea as the only other three-starred spot then in Chicago. But the sweet success soured: Financially, Grace had been backed by Chicago real estate investor Michael Olszewski (whom Duffy refers to in the book as “Dolos” — a mythological Greek figure, known for trickery). By the fall of 2017, according to Duffy, the working relationship with Olszewski had “deteriorated abysmally.” He and Muser attempted to buy the restaurant but failed, and in December 2017, Olszewski fired Muser. Duffy later walked away and Grace closed for good. (Reached this week, Olszewski said he made the decision to close Grace because “it wasn’t a good fit anymore.” He said he intended to sell to Duffy and Muser, but the potential buyer who would have put up money for the sale backed out.)
In the book, Duffy writes in detail about his friend, the chef Thai Dang, and how Dang’s former restaurant Embeya was defrauded by one of the owners. Like Duffy, Dang has found his way back to the kitchen. Together with his wife, Danielle, Dang opened the Vietnamese restaurant HaiSous in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, which Duffy says is one of his favorite restaurants in the city.
Duffy also gives props to Pequod’s Pizza, says he’s crazy about Proxi, the Asian seafood spot in the West Loop, and has been frequenting Tiparos in Old Town for their coconut chicken tom kha gai soup for nearly two decades.
“I regard Chicago as the greatest city in the world — and the greatest culinary destination as well,” Duffy writes. “It has become a must-visit food destination … with an eager and ravenous clientele of both residents and tourists that allows you to — indeed, expects you to — express yourself and follow the muse. They don’t want ‘safe’ — 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, despite having three Michelin stars. Now, Duffy says he is still hungry to reclaim that third star at Ever, which has been recognized by Michelin with two stars since 2021.
Manuel Martinez/WBEZ
“The next chapter of success”
Ever opened its doors in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Duffy now says was “incredibly crazy.” Once again, Chicago embraced him: Out of the gate, Ever earned two stars from the Michelin Guide in 2021.
Unexpectedly, another boost came when the team behind FX’s hit kitchen show “The Bear” highlighted Ever in its second season. Cousin Richie (actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach) trains in a fictitious version of Ever in the now-famous episode “Forks,” which was shot in Ever’s real-world kitchen.
Now, Duffy is looking to the future. Earlier this year, he and Muser parted ways professionally, which Duffy chalked up to a difference in ambitions.
“I wanted to continue to grow, and I felt like the feelings weren’t the same,” he said. “It was just time to go our separate ways and see what we can do without each other.”
Muser could not be reached by WBEZ for comment. On Instagram in February, he wrote, “Chef Duffy and I have worked together and supported each other for more than 15 years. But now is the time for me to follow my own ambitions and endeavors.”
What does come next for Duffy? More restaurants, cookbooks and a new documentary set to come out next year, he said.
“I want to continue mentoring and trying to get some of these younger guys under the umbrella of restaurants that we own and they also own,” Duffy said. “I think that’s going to be the next chapter of success.”
He’s also eyeing opportunities to open up restaurants in Florida, where he now spends part of his time with his Miami-based wife and stepchildren. For the most part, Duffy said it’s not about him anymore. “I’ve achieved almost everything that I’ve wanted to achieve in the restaurant world,” he said.
However, there is still one thing that he’s hungry for. Just below his right pinky, Duffy has three Michelin stars tattooed in red. The ink is a nod to the honor that was awarded to him at Grace.
It’s also a constant reminder of what he’s still chasing.
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and culture reporter at WBEZ.