CHICAGO — As people in the restaurant business here remember the chef Homaro Cantu, who took his own life this week, they describe a man who was always willing to take on one more thing.

He had Moto, his Michelin-starred avant-garde restaurant in this city’s meatpacking district, and a cafe, Berrista. He was putting together an innovative brewery, Crooked Fork, and finishing his second cookbook. He apparently said yes to every charity that came his way, and was the driving force (and board president) behind the Trotter Project, a nonprofit group that offers career guidance for young people with an interest in cooking.

A self-taught inventor, Mr. Cantu, 38, was constantly devising gadgets and techniques, at least two of which were patented. He dreamed of cooking interplanetary snacks for the entrepreneur Elon Musk’s space-travel venture. He proclaimed that he would banish world hunger with something called the miracle berry.

“He created an environment where you weren’t afraid,” said Richie Farina, the executive chef at Moto, which experimented with edible paper menus and aromatic utensils. “ ‘No’ was never a word you heard here. His thing was always, ‘How do you do more?’ ”