2003 Ivy Awards - Tru

By Scott Hume, Managing Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 5/15/2003

Understanding the soul of Tru requires looking beyond the soaring, two-story dining room and its original Peter Halley, Maya Lin and Andy Warhol artwork, even elsewhere than the $1 million-plus kitchen and the stream of savory and sweet dishes that emerges from it each night. What is quintessentially Tru are the squat, cobalt-fabric-covered purse stools placed as a convenience beside diners’ chairs.

For more than a decade, sometimes cooking apart but more often together in Chicago, New York City and Europe, Tru Executive Chef Rick Tramonto and Executive Pastry Chef Gale Gand kept a folder. In it they stored their dreams, the details that felt good and right encountered at restaurants where they worked or dined.

“Everything we wanted to do in a restaurant we put in the folder,” says Tramonto. “We were waiting for the time and the place to do the purse stool and everything else. It was only a question of whether we ever would have the means and the right stage.”

There were many times they doubted whether they’d realize the dream. “We’re eternal optimists or we wouldn’t be at this point,” says Gand, “but you never think you’re going to get this. I didn’t think we’d get this lucky.”

It wasn’t luck so much as faith that made it happen, a confidence in their abilities shared not only by Tramonto and Gand but also and especially by Rich Melman, the head of Chicago multiconcept operator Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE), who provided funding ($3 million), a prime location (a block east of tony Michigan Avenue in space once home to LEYE’s Avanzare Italian concept) and unwavering support. The 136-seat operation (90 in the main dining room plus a 40-seat private-dining room and a six-seat kitchen table) opened in 1999 and quickly became a prime dining destination.

Melman brought Tramonto from New York City to Chicago in 1987 to cook at Avanzare and then at two other LEYE properties, the Pump Room and Scoozi!. Gand spent time as the Pump Room’s pastry chef, and the three have been close friends for 15 years. Tramonto and Gand closed a suburban restaurant, Brasserie T, when Melman offered to help create their ideal operation. “Rich was the rock, the visionary of what could be done,” says Tramonto.

What Melman saw in them, Tramonto says, was “pure passion and drive.” They also brought ambition born of experience.

“We set out to reinvent fine dining,” Gand says. Rick and I spent a lot of time and money eating in Europe and it seemed the more we spent [at a restaurant] the less fun we had. Our goal was to provide an experience that would be world class in terms of food and service but also have a sense of humor and not intimidate customers, which is what fine dining usually falls back on to justify its high prices.”

Tru’s culinary vision also is distinct, offering diners their choice of tasting menus. At Melman’s suggestion, these menus are called collections, evoking couturiers’ changing fashion designs. From the three-course prix-fixe menu, the seven-course Grand and Seafood Collections (plus seasonal creations such as last summer’s collection that presented 21 different tomato varieties over 10 courses) to the full-tilt, eight-course Tramonto’s Collection ($135 yet accounting for 65% to 70% of dinner orders, he says), diners experience waves of meticulously crafted flavor, texture and color combinations, served on custom-designed china and unexpected surfaces (such as mirrors).

Each course has multiple components: For example the amuses-bouches that begin the Seafood Collection may include rosemary-infused apple water, braised Manila clams with Italian sausage and beans, and steamed black mussel with coconut broth and curry oil. Even the three-course prix-fixe menu may have as many as a dozen main-course dishes from which to choose. Gand’s Dessert Collection may include a miniature root beer float, roasted pineapple carpaccio, an assortment of chocolate truffles and more.

The experience is meant to be dazzling, memorable and playful. The Triptych of Tartares (hamachi, salmon and tuna) often included in Tramonto’s Collection is served in a dish nestled into a bowl containing a live Japanese fighting fish. Tramonto designed an eight-step glass caviar stairway (so popular the restaurant sells them) that is functional and fun. Dinner at Tru is delicious performance art, each meal a consciously paced journey intended to end with delight and amazement.

Remembering their disappointment at visiting legendary French restaurants where he and Gand were served the same courses, Tramonto vowed to do fine dining differently. “It all would be delicious and wonderful but I felt that if I were only going to be there once I’d want to experience it to the max,” he says. “So we said we’ve got to figure out how the kitchen can not do that. How are we going to be able to give a six-person table six different cold appetizers, six hot appetizers, six soups, foies, fish, meats and desserts? Let customers see 60 different things and blow them away. It took months of trial and error to get it right, but that’s what [Tru is] about.”

Pre-service meetings with dining-room staff include a rundown of how long ago that evening’s diners made their reservations. “It’s amazing to me that someone may wait 16 weeks to get into my restaurant,” Tramonto says.

“We feel this great privilege when we cook for people,” says Gand. “For us, serving food is nurturing, entertainment, a form of communion. There aren’t many more-intimate experiences than feeding someone.”