Charlie Palmer is 46. He grew up in Smyrna, a tiny farming town in upstate New York roughly 50 miles from Syracuse. He was turned on to cooking by a high-school home-economics teacher, worked as a dishwasher and a line cook in the kitchen of a nearby university, and attended the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., close to New York City.
After graduating, he worked as a sous chef at La Côte Basque and as a pastry chef at Le Petite Marmite, both French restaurants in Manhattan. After three years of working for perfectionist French chefs, Charlie left to become head chef at the Waccabuc Country Club in Westchester County.
At age 23, Charlie became the executive chef at the River Café, one of the finest restaurants in New York. He stayed there for four years, until he opened the original Aureole, what he calls the "American Lutèce," in 1988 at age 28. That led to Aureole and Charlie Palmer Steak in Las Vegas in 1999. Next came Metrazur, an American brasserie overlooking the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal, and Kitchen 22 in New York, Astra West in Los Angeles, and another Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington, D.C. Today, with the help of investor Oliver Grace (great-nephew of W.R. Grace, founder of the giant chemical company), the Charlie Palmer Group has 11 restaurants, one hotel, and more than 1,000 employees.
Palmer is also keen on being involved in restaurant-support businesses. He owns a piece of Peekskill, New York's, Egg Farm Dairy, which supplies his restaurants with butter, cream, and cheese. He also has an interest in a florist, StoneKelly. He's also established a line of specialty food products sold under the brand name Charlie Palmer Foods in gourmet-food outlets. And he plans to launch a line of high-end grocery stores; the first is scheduled to open in Las Vegas later this year.
Palmer is the author Great American Food, Charlie Palmer's Casual Cooking, and The Art of Aureole. He ranked number 100 among the Top 100 Celebrities in 2005 by Forbes magazine. He's married and has four sons.
In 2002, Palmer opened the Hotel Healdsburg and its Dry Creek Kitchen in Sonoma, California. It's 67 miles north of San Francisco in the northern Sonoma wine country, with 55 rooms, a spa, and gardens.
Hotel Healdsburg encompasses the area's simplicity and charm. On the western edge of the historic town plaza, the hotel is a venue where one can enjoy some of the world’s finest vineyards, restaurants and shops, within minutes of the front steps.
The Healdsburg, no doubt, led to his announcement last month of plans to open the Charlie Palmer Hotel, a 35-story 400-plus-room non-casino condo-hotel at the intersection of Tropicana and Dean Martin Drive (the extension of Industrial Road). The site is now occupied by the Golden Palm Hotel-Casino (formerly a Howard Johnson's) that's owned by Marvin Lipschultz, who acquired it in the early 1990s and has been trying to redevelop it ever since; Palmer and Lipschultz are now development partners.
The three-acre $400 million hotel is scheduled to begin construction by the end of 2006, with completion expected in mid-2008. Most of the condos will be small, 550-800 square feet, with prices starting around $400,000; there will also be several penthouses. The hotel will also have three restaurants, a top-floor nightclub, and a spa.
The interior decorator is Adam Tihany, known, most recently, for his redesigns of the buffets at the Mirage and Treasure Island. Reportedly, Palmer has enlisted the participation of Bill Richardson, a local construction expert and former executive of Mandalay Resort Group, which could ensure that the Charlie Palmer Hotel happens.
Beyond that, Palmer believes that the brand loyalty he’s cultivated through his restaurants and products will carry over to his condo-hotel. The location is strong: as close to the Strip as it’s possible to be for an off-Strip property. And even though it’s right next to Interstate 15, he’s got good views both ways, with nothing looming in the future to block them. Time will tell.
