But the smartest customers at Charlie Trotter's know that they'd be nuts to order him around that way. "We hope that we can entice everyone into trusting us to do our thing," he says. Harris realized this after his fourth or fifth visit to the restaurant. "After that, I never even asked to see a menu," he says. "I just told the waiter to let the chef decide what to serve me." In fact, one-third of his customers let Trotter decide what to prepare for them. Trotter hopes that one day everyone will order this way. At that point, a menu would become pointless, since he and his staff would create every meal on the spot. "I want our menus to become souvenir documents -- something presented to you after you finish your meal as a record of your experience," he says.

Great Expectations Are the Best Expectations

There's a big problem with creating a world-renowned restaurant whose success is built around a truly distinctive approach to food and the overall dining experience: great expectations. Most customers walk through the front door of Charlie Trotter's fully expecting to have one of the best meals of their lives. And some of those customers are truly tough customers. CEOs show up all the time, from companies like Sara Lee and US Airways. Michael Jordan has been by for a meal. So has Trey Anastasio, guitarist and singer for the rock band Phish. When Anastasio came to dine, he even ordered thematically, selecting a $10,000 bottle of wine that had been recovered from the wreck of a ship that had settled on the ocean floor decades ago.

To Trotter, customers who come in with great expectations are part of the thrill. "There is no shortage of people who come in and sit down with their arms folded and glare at the waiter," he says, noting that it's almost as if they expect to be disappointed. "I especially love New Yorkers. They're so full of themselves, walking in and dropping the names of the places at which they eat three times a week. They're so easy to crush."

Ray Harris, who holds the record for most visits to the restaurant, is himself a food freak from New York who spent five years commuting to Chicago each week for his financial-services job. "I'm your classic New York wacko," he admits. "I spent my first couple of months in Chicago methodically going from restaurant to restaurant, searching for a good bistro where I could sit quietly by myself at the end of the day and read the newspaper."

Charlie Trotter's restaurant is not a casual bistro, but Harris stopped by anyway, and soon he was hooked. "Initially, I came once a month," he says. "Then I came every two weeks. Eventually, I started coming every Thursday night. It was a standing appointment, the treat I gave myself at the end of each week in Chicago."

As staff members got to know Harris and his tastes, each Thursday night became like a contest: What could they do to surprise him next? "They tried to see how different they could make the meal each time," he says. Harris has been to the restaurant more than 300 times. "I was away from home so much that the restaurant became my living room and the staff became my surrogate family," says Harris. "I now look back on that stretch of meals as one of the greatest experiences of my life."

Ron Lieber (rlieber@fastcompany.com), a Fast Company senior writer, is based in New York City. The only thing that he loves more than creating great articles is eating at great restaurants. Learn more about Charlie Trotter and his restaurant on the Web (www.charlietrotters.com), or contact him by email (cht@charlietrotters.com).

Sidebar: What's Fast

Charlie Trotter's recipe for success includes one really key ingredient: the people he hires. Which is not to suggest that he's a warm and fuzzy boss. In the old days, of course, chefs treated their apprentices like slaves. Plate smashing occurred on a regular basis; physical abuse was not uncommon. While Trotter's charges bear no signs of physical abuse, the chef appeared on Chicago magazine's list of the meanest people in the city. "In my case, they defined 'mean' as intense," he says. "I have a number of customers who are CEOs, and after that article appeared, they were furious that they hadn't been included. Besides, Michael Jordan was on the top of the list. Who wouldn't want to be on a list with Michael Jordan?"

Cooks who survive the first few weeks working for Trotter -- and that's a little more than half -- tend to stick around for at least 18 months, an eternity in an industry marked at its lowest levels by lousy pay, inadequate benefits, and extreme ambition. Waiters tend to stick around for four or five years. Trotter's employees stay not only because their learning curve is so steep but also because he rewards them well. They get at least two weeks of paid vacation after one year of service, a generous 401(k) plan, and full benefits. Employees who have worked at the restaurant for less than two years earn market rates, but those who stay longer tend to earn 20% to 30% more than what they would make in the same job at a different restaurant. Several long-term employees, including some waiters, earn six-figure salaries.

But Trotter is realistic enough to understand that most of his stars will shine brightly for a while -- and then go off in new directions. "If you go around the kitchen and ask my employees what they want to be doing in three to five years," he says, "most of them, if they're being honest, will tell you that they don't want to be working for me. They want to have their own place. And I think that's great."