How Daniel Humm turned Eleven Madison Park vegan

Daniel Humm had to weather a storm after the big change at Eleven Madison Park in NYC. But now he’s reaping the rewards, and a popup venue is headed for Australia.

Change of direction: Daniel Humm. Picture: Craig McDean

Daniel, you grew up in a small village in Switzerland and ended up becoming one of America’s most successful chefs. How did that happen?

My most vivid childhood memory is of going to the market with my mom, talking to the farmers and picking up the freshest produce. Whenever she bought lettuce, it was my job to wash it. The days when it had rained were the worst because the leaves were covered in dirt. I would wash them five or six times, making sure they were perfectly clean before taking them back to my mom. At that point in my life, I didn’t know I would become a chef, but I appreciated that constant pursuit of perfection in even the simplest of tasks. In my life as a chef, it is a principle that she instilled in me that I still carry with me today. Cooking is a craft. To learn a craft, it’s not about creating at first. There is a right way to do a consommé, to sear an ingredient. Every great chef starts by being a great craftsman - making that perfect sauce or making that perfect dish. And then at some point creativity becomes a part of it. You start from a place of rules, and then you start breaking them.

When you started at Eleven Madison Park, what was your ambition for the venue? How did you want things to change?

We wanted to make a restaurant that is for our generation. A restaurant of our generation needs to be fun, people need to be loving being here. Anything that we do at the restaurant, we want to do to enhance the experience of the guest or to enhance them having fun. At the core of going to a restaurant is to be with your friends, your family, and your loved ones, and in everything that we do, we want to enhance that experience between them.

Inside the dining room at Eleven Madison Park

In 2021 you took Eleven Madison Park vegan. In his review of the restaurant, New York Times critic Pete Wells said he felt sorry for some of the vegetables involved. Do you think it has taken a while for the world to accept veganism?

Our restaurant was known for its lavender-roasted duck and suckling pig, and at first, this change felt limiting and scary. Over the past year and a half, we found the opposite — just how liberating it can be to cook toward a more beautiful, more sustainable, healthier and more delicious future. While it wasn’t an easy transition, I can look back and be proud of how we evolved to this moment. I am proud of my team for committing. I’m honoured by our guests believing in us. The other night, I was in the dining room, and the energy felt effervescent, from the usual sounds of laughter and clinking glasses and a bar that was full to overflowing. But it just felt different, and at this moment, I realised that most of our guests were much younger and much more diverse than I have seen in the last 15 years. This menu has attracted a huge shift in our audience. This gives me hope that a plant-based menu has a place in the canon of fine dining and will inspire other restaurants to incorporate more plant-based options.

Did the review change your direction or menu at all?

We are two years into this new chapter, and the learning has been immense. We had to shift the existing mindset and liberate ourselves from the formulaic approach of how a traditional fine-dining meal unveils, where vegetables are often seasonal condiments to the fish and meat. There is a classical, expected progression of courses: small bites, raw fish, foie gras, crustaceans and meat. Today, we can look at the vegetables without restrictions and truly create a dish from the ground up, showcasing the entire season.

How do you rise above criticism to pursue your vision of what you want to do?

My father always said that when you’re passionate about something, it doesn’t matter how big or small it may be, but that it’s more about putting all your effort into it. For me, that’s what cooking has been and what Eleven Madison Park represents. As we have gone down this path, we are confident in letting the flavours of the ingredients shine for themselves and conceiving a dish that is both beautiful and delicious. There is so much room for creativity, surprise, and, ultimately, to create magic. One of the greatest compliments that we can receive is someone simply saying that they enjoyed a great meal with us. That is what we do, to provide a memorable dining experience for everyone, from those who are vegan in their everyday life to those who have never experienced a fully plant-based meal.

Are you vegan yourself?

My diet is predominantly plant-based, but not entirely. I’ve found that the more I eat plant-based, the less I crave meat. Even if everyone were to eat plant-based just one day out of the week, it would make a significant difference for the future — I often say it’s about progress, not perfection.

Grilled squash with seitan at Eleven Madison Park

During Covid you worked with the charity Rethink Food to deliver free meals to communities in need and first responders. How did the pandemic alter your view of the role of food in society?

The pandemic brought our industry to its knees. For the 16 months that the doors of our restaurant were closed, we turned our space into a community kitchen to cook meals for food-insecure New Yorkers. It was during this time that I discovered a new connection to the magic and language of food and our craft. Realising the power of this language to ignite change, not just toward food insecurity but also the climate crisis, I took the time to educate myself on the impact that animal farming has on our environment. As a chef, I’ve long seen a change in the quality and taste of the ingredients that are available and where they are sourced from. When finalising the menu before lockdown, we had an incredible dish highlighting the freshness of the peas that were full of flavour. We topped the dish with caviar, and we had to ask ourselves why? Did it add anything to the impact of flavour? Where does this caviar come from? What is our intention with this dish? Miles Davis’s model for endless reinvention was playing in my mind constantly during this time, and if we were going to be true to that, I knew we had to come back from the pandemic closure with something meaningful. There’s just no way we could keep doing the same thing because then we’ve lost ourselves. Then we’re not Eleven Madison Park anymore. With the world and the food system being in a very fragile place, I felt that we had an opportunity and a responsibility to use both our platform and our creativity toward a plant-based future and redefining the idea of luxury.

Is dining at the upper level like at Eleven Madison Park only for the rich? How do you feel about that?

This is something that I have grappled with for a long time - having privilege. We obsess over ingredients the way we do in a world where some people have no food. Dining at a restaurant is costly regardless of how many stars it has, and that’s a conflict. I am conscious that I have become a voice in our industry, and it is important to me to use it responsibly.

Vegan bread and butter at Eleven Madison Park

What are your plans for your Sydney popup? What can diners expect?

We’ve been working closely with chef Matt Moran and his team at Aria to source some of the best local ingredients that New South Wales has to offer. Seasonality and freshness are integral to our menu and approach to food. Over 90% of the ingredients used in the menu will be sourced locally. For example, we’re working with a local producer to produce fresh soy milk for us so we can use it to create tofu and with a local rice farmer for a particular short-grain rice. We’ll also be recreating our famous bread-and-butter program. Guests to this day cannot wrap their minds around how this flaky bread, and rich butter, is entirely plant-based.

Daniel Humm’s residency at Aria restaurant runs June 6-17 as part of Vivid Sydney.