Eleven Madison Park's Radical Plant-Forward Reinvention
How Daniel Humm built the future of fine dining
Marcus de Villiers
Culinary Correspondent
28 February 2025
11 min read
When New York's most celebrated restaurant went entirely plant-based in 2021, critics were sceptical. Four years on, we revisit a tasting menu that has quietly become the most influential meal in America.
Daniel Humm's dining room on Madison Square Park has the proportions of a cathedral and the hush of a library. The service is so refined as to be invisible — you realise only later, recounting the meal, how precisely every need was anticipated.
A Menu Without Compromise
The current menu opens with a mushroom broth of startling depth — a reminder that umami is not the exclusive province of meat. A course of black truffle and celeriac arrives next, shaved tableside from a whole truffle the size of a tennis ball. The effect is theatrical; the flavour is transcendent.
“Humm has proved that restraint, applied with enough intelligence, is its own form of abundance.”
The Wine Programme
Wine director Ariel Arce has assembled a 3,000-label cellar weighted toward Burgundy and the Jura. The sommelier pairing at $225 is exceptional value at this level; ask for the non-alcoholic pairing if you want to understand how good fermented beverages can be without a drop of alcohol.
Partner
Eleven Madison Park
Tasting menu $365 per person. Reservations open 60 days in advance at 9am EST.
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