FEATURE

from DANIEL HUMM, New York, December 2022 / January 2023

HAUTE TIME

“OUR SLOGAN HAS ALWAYS BEEN ‘MAKE IT NICE,’ BUT I THINK TODAY IT’S MORE LIKE ‘MAKE IT MATTER.’ I THINK ‘MAKE IT NICE’ ISN’T QUITE ENOUGH ANYMORE.”

“We want to go out there in the world more and just learn from other cultures, but we also wanted to have 3 Michelin stars as a vegan restaurant before we wanted to play around within those rules that we created. And now, we are no longer playing the same game. We’re now part of writing the rules,” he says proudly. While Humm finds charting these new waters exhilarating, he does note that there’s a lot of responsibility that comes with being the first. Incidentally, this is also Humm’s reason for refusing to expand his reach beyond his current restaurant, although he had previously opened the NoMad hotel chain restaurants, as well as the now-shuttered Davies and Brook at Claridge’s in London (his first eatery outside of the U.S.).

“I really want to focus on just one restaurant,” he says now. “I don’t want to create a global empire. I want to focus on my craft. Eleven Madison Park is the most beautiful restaurant in the world, in the most beautiful city. It’s my home, and I’m really happy to feel so engaged with the place that has been my life for the last 20 years.”

He is open to expanding, but meaningfully, and so his current missions are to keep innovating here at Eleven Madison Park; to keep his (now plantbased-loving) customers happy with Eleven Madison Home, his collection of plant-based kitchen essentials, pantry staples, and ready-to-eat snacks; and to give back in any way that he feasibly can. The latter is nothing new: it has always been the intention behind his hospitality company, Make It Nice, which he launched with former business partner Will Guidara in 2011. So Humm isn’t opposed to taking on new projects, but they do have to have a rhyme and a reason and align completely with his own.

“Our slogan has always been ‘make it nice,’ but I think today it’s more like ‘make it matter.’ I think ‘make it nice’ isn’t quite enough anymore. If a pop-up or any other opportunities arise, [my reason for agreeing to do it] just needs to matter beyond giving pleasure to people. It needs to make a difference. It needs to show a different way forward — like-minded people who want to make a difference, people who are not afraid of pushing boundaries. Then I would say, ‘Yeah.’”

So, for the time being, he’s going to soak in the sensation of doing something different, let it simmer, and carefully and deliberately plot his next move. “It’s truly incredible to think that we are still at the beginning of this journey,” he marvels, which is why his plan is this: “Right now, I’m going slow, and I’m going to make every move matter,” he explains, adding, “People always ask me, ‘What’s next, what’s next, what’s next?’ And I’m just like, ‘Well, we’re continuing to do the work.’ Our restaurant feeds 500 people every single day for free; we cook extra meals and deliver those meals to Queensbridge [the largest housing project in America]. You know, make it matter.” He coughs delicately before continuing. “This is a conflict that I have struggled with forever — to have privilege. Obsessing over ingredients the way we do, in a world where some people have no food. It’s very expensive to dine at a restaurant, and that’s a conflict. I’m also aware that I’ve become a voice in our industry, and I want to use it with responsibility.”

Even — and perhaps especially — if that means he has to put himself in the limelight, which is something he has truly never been a fan of.

“I’m really introverted, and that’s the truth,” he admits. “That’s why I chose a career in the kitchen, behind the scenes. When I started cooking, the cooks were never seen; we’d go through a back entrance or through a basement, and that’s how I felt most comfortable. But with being [a public figure], I had to become more extroverted. But it’s not what brings me joy.”

That begs an obvious question.

Which Humm obligingly answers. “What brings me joy is just that, right now, so much of my life now feels like it did at the beginning of my career, where it was all about creating. And right now, people are actually paying attention to just that. I know that every dish we create today, the world will see. It’s amazing getting to do what I love and feeling that love for it again. For example, Keith Richards, no matter how big the Rolling Stones were going to get, he is always going to play the guitar. It’s not like they could get so big that he would stop playing the guitar. That’s true for me, too. In my world, at times, the success became so big that I wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. I think, because of COVID and just taking the focus back to one restaurant, [that has been given] back to me. I am playing the guitar again, and that’s what gives me the most joy.”

And when I ask how he feels, right now, at this very second — sickness and all — his answer is so vehement, there can be no question as to its truth.

“I feel very grounded. I feel energized — and pretty fucking happy.”

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