Howard Gardner organized monthly black-tie dinners as president of a centuries-old gourmet group’s Chicago chapter, taking care of details that included tapping fellow gastronomes to prepare toasts.
Once the dishes started coming out of the kitchen, all focus was on the food.
“If people had put their heart and soul into putting together a beautiful dinner, you paid attention to it,” said Jeanne Cahill, a fellow member of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, an organization founded in France in 1248. “You don’t just slug it down.”
A world traveler and former president of an advertising agency he founded, Mr. Gardner, 89, died of heart failure on Wednesday, Aug. 5, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said his son, Jeffrey. He was a resident of the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood.
Mr. Gardner was a longtime officer of the Chaine des Rotisseurs’ Chicago chapter and was the organization’s president, officially known by the French term “Bailli,” in the 1980s and 1990s. Members, some of whom are in the food and hospitality industry, support culinary education in addition to eating well together every month.
Although partial to the rarefied cuisine of Charlie Trotter’s, Mr. Gardner appreciated any food that was well-prepared. Hot Doug’s, the adventurous Northwest Side hot dog joint, was another favorite, Cahill said.
“He really had very high standards of excellence,” she said. “He maintained it [the Chaine in Chicago], and he built it.”
Born in Rockford and raised in Chicago, Mr. Gardner graduated from the University of Michigan and started a career in ad sales with the Chicago Tribune, his son said.
He struck out on his own after a few years with the Tribune, eventually taking on partners and the agency name Gardner, Stein & Frank. Many of the firm’s clients were in the hospitality industry.
He retired in 1983, which provided even more time for his lifelong pursuit of travel.
Mr. Gardner and his wife, Marjorie, who survives him, sailed on more than 42 cruises over the years aboard everything from small freighters to luxurious superliners. They visited Hong Kong 19 times, and set foot in more than 100 countries around the globe.
Mr. Gardner wrote extensively of his travels in publications including the Chicago Tribune, where he told readers of his stay at the Hotel Everest View in Katmandu and of watching an elephant roundup in Thailand.
“He had a real eye and a mind for geography,” said Alfred Borcover, a former Tribune travel editor who worked with Mr. Gardner.
For many years, he contributed to the Tribune travel section’s annual GeoQuiz. He created crossword puzzles that challenged readers with clues like, “A five-letter word for a landlocked country in Africa.”
(Niger.)
“Howard had an inquisitive love of travel – and geography with all its peculiarities,” former Tribune travel editor Randy Curwen said.
He is also survived by a daughter, Jill Baker, and two grandchildren.
Services have been held.
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ttjensen@tribune.com
