Eleven Madison Park Abandons Its All-Vegan Menu, Bringing Back Fish, Meat And Honey-Glazed Duck

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NEW YORK, NY – FEBRUARY 27: Three star Michelin Chef Daniel Humm at Eleven Madison Park Restaurant is bacon away from an all vegan menu. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Blancpain)

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Daniel Humm, Chef-Partner of New York’s Eleven Madison Park, has announced that, after four years of serving a full, multi-course vegan menu, “It became clear that while we had built something meaningful, we had also unintentionally kept people out. This is the opposite of what we believe hospitality to be.” As a result, “Starting October 14th, we will integrate our new language into a menu that embraces choice. We will offer a plant-based menu, of course, but also select animal products for certain dishes.”

This is a remarkable but sensible change in a particularly tough time for restaurants, for despite near-full houses most nights at Eleven Madison Park (EMP) business was lagging, and highly profitable private events have fewer and fewer bookings. “It’s hard to get 30 people for a corporate dinner to come to a plant-based restaurant,” he told the New York Times.

EMP has a twenty-four history, opened originally in 2001 by Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group as a high-end New York style dining room within an historic Art Deco building overlooking Madison Park, with a full-scale menu of meat, fish and vegetables. It was highly regarded by the critics for its fine cuisine under Chef Kerry Heffernan and its sophisticated service and wine list. Meyer hired Humm to continue that tradition, then sold the restaurant to him and partner (former general manager) Will Guidara, who tried to tone down EMR’s formality with gimmicks like pouring clams onto newspaper in the middle of a nine-course meal, inviting guests for a cocktail at the bar in the middle of the meal, and having captains do car tricks at the table. (Guidara left the restaurant in 2019.)

After closing during Covid, EMP re-opened in 2021. He contended, “The current food system is simply not sustainable, in so many ways.” This week he announced, “My team and I felt liberated and cracked open. The journey proved richer than any before. We created a new culinary language: mille-feuille without butter, meringue without eggs, almond-milk ricotta, sunflower butter, koji stocks, whipped cashew cream, even ‘land caviar.’”

Humm was betting on a trend many chefs have picked up on by offering alternative vegetarian menus alongside their meat and seafood menu, which makes capital sense, whether it’s Alain Ducasse at the Plaza-Athenée and Alain Passard at L’Arpège in Paris or Massimo Bottura at Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy. But none attempted to go total vegan. At the time Humm went total vegan at EMP, I felt he was taking a great risk.

Many fans of the restaurant as well as food media wondered if Humm could pull off selling nine course vegan menus for $335––now $365––before wine tax and tip, but at first EMP was booked weeks in advance, even garnering three Michelin stars––the first vegan restaurant ever to win that high honor–– although Times critic Pete Well hit hard, writing, “With time, Mr. Humm may stop overcompensating for ditching the animal products, too. Beets aren’t very good at pretending to be meat, but their ability to taste like beets is unrivaled.” Apparently that time has come.

And after all, running a restaurant is a business and even if EMP drew the well-heeled curious diner who probably enjoyed his meal once, how often would an omnivore return? How many vegans would seek out nine courses for that kind of money on a regular basis?

Four years later, Humm has now thrown in the towel on his experiment, recognizing that his crusading spirit and staff dedication was not enough to keep the restaurant profitable. “The all-or-nothing approach was necessary to develop our expertise,” he now says, “but that, too, comes with its own limitations. As a chef, I want to continue to open paths, not close them. Eating together is the essence of who we are, and I’ve learned that for me to truly champion plant-based cooking, I need to create an environment where everyone feels welcome around the table.”

Since I have always regarded Humm as one of the finest chefs of any kind in America, I welcome his change of mind and look forward to returning to EMP, hopefully without clambakes on the table or card tricks by the waiters.