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The top fine dining New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park is going for a plant-based menu.
The chef and owner, Daniel Humm posted a message on its website saying the modern food system was “simply not sustainable”.
“Our practices of animal production, what we’re doing to the oceans, the amount we consume: it is not sustainable. If Eleven Madison Park is truly at the forefront of dining and culinary innovation, to me it’s crystal clear that this is the only place to go next,”
– Daniel Humm
Daniel Humm is the ‘Chef’ and the driving force behind Eleven Madison Park, which has won three Michelin stars.
The restaurant closed during the coronavirus pandemic and is now preparing to re-open with a completely plant based diet menu.
Mr. Humm said his decision to reopen his restaurant after a year long hiatus due to the pandemic is the result of reflection and consideration towards our planet and sustainability.
Above all, the restaurant will continue to make the effort to operate their Eleven Madison Truck which is a mobile commissary kitchen.
Daniel Humm launched this project last spring, in partnership with Rethink Food, to address rising hunger needs in New York during the pandemic. Every meal purchased at Eleven Madison Park will provide five meals for that effort.
“I wanted everyone who comes into contact with Eleven Madison Park to become a part of doing good,”
– Daniel Humm
We’ve made the decision to serve a plant-based menu in which we do not use any animal products
“We have always operated with sensitivity to the impact we have on our surroundings, but it was becoming ever clearer that the current food system is simply not sustainable, in so many ways … It was clear that after everything we all experienced this past year, we couldn’t open the same restaurant,” Humm said in a statement posted on the eatery’s website.
“We’ve made the decision to serve a plant-based menu in which we do not use any animal products – every dish is made from vegetables, both from the earth and the sea, as well as fruits, legumes, fungi, grains, and so much more,” he added.Read here the whole statement of Eleven Madison Park
Change is necessary and inevitable
Mr Humm’s profound change in thinking and course of direction in the culinary domain will certainly disturb the market and send shockwaves out to his loyal customers and colleagues.
Surely Mr Humm with Eleven Madison Park will establish himself as a leader of plant based and sustainable ‘Haute Cuisine’ and many more will follow.
I’m not going to lie, at times I’m up in the middle of the night, thinking about the risk we’re taking abandoning dishes that once defined us.
DANIEL HUMM
CHEF at Eleven Madison Park - New York
Please read the full excerpt from Eleven Madison Park Website
A native of Switzerland, he was exposed to food at a very young age, and began working in kitchens at the age of 14. From there he spent time in some of the finest Swiss hotels and restaurants before earning his first Michelin star at the age of 24. In 2003, Daniel moved to the United States to become the executive chef at Campton Place in San Francisco, where he received four stars from the San Francisco Chronicle. Three years later, he moved to New York to become the executive chef at Eleven Madison Park.
He is the author of Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook, I Love New York: Ingredients and Recipes, The NoMad Cookbook and Eleven Madison Park: The Next Chapter