There was a time when we didn’t expect chefs to be friendly. In fact, black moods or artistic tantrums were the barometers by which we judged greatness. That may have changed in some quarters, but Charlie Trotter’s is one place it hasn’t. Trotter can be difficult, but he is also one of the best chefs in the world. So don’t expect him to schmooze with you, even if you did shell out $175 per person to eat at the kitchen table. Do, however, expect some of the best, most innovative food on the planet. If you’re not eating in the kitchen (where you get the 15-course Kitchen Menu), your options are the Grand Menu or the Vegetarian Menu, six-course degustations that offer the finest, most pristine ingredients in multi-faceted dishes that make the server’s detailed descriptions absolutely necessary. Combinations are complex and often surprising, with influences from just about every world culture that cooks. You might find yourself starting with a small cube that alternates thin slices of orange with house-smoked salmon, or perhaps a diver sea scallop with leek confit and Uruguayan Osetra caviar. Chestnut soup with butternut squash and cloves might precede whole roasted squab with black trumpet mushrooms, oxtail, collard greens, and red-wine-braised carrots, followed by South Dakota bison tenderloin with rutabaga, white polenta, and spiced date. Vegetables might include roasted organic beets with crosnes, porcini mushroom, and garlic chutney. If any complaint might be leveled it is, as one diner stated it, that the food is a little too crafted. But almost no one complains. The temperamental poli-sci major from Wisconsin pretty much always wows his audience.