Chef Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park recently collaborated with Mumbai-based fine dining experiential restaurant Masque for an exclusive two-day dinner. In a conversation with Travel+Leisure India & South Asia’s contributor, the celebrated chef and restaurateur dished out his inspiration, spoke about why the world needs to look at food sustainability, and gave insights into his latest book.
New York-based Eleven Madison Park is quite an institution, having earned the distinction of being a three Michelin-star restaurant since 2012, constantly pushing the boundaries of fine dining and earning several accolades along the way. Considered among the top restaurants in the world, it has also been one to adopt many firsts. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Eleven Madison Park, helmed by chef Daniel Humm, decided to overhaul its menu and become completely plant-based. It was a gamble but one that paid off, making it the first and only plant-based Michelin-starred restaurant in the world. Humm also decided to turn the kitchen into a commissary during this period, cooking and distributing meals to New Yorkers in need, in association with a non-profit organisation.
The 46-year-old Swiss-born chef has earned several laurels throughout his career, authored books and spoken about the need for sustainability in food. Under his leadership, Eleven Madison Park has notched up four stars from the New York Times and three stars from the Michelin Guide. Highly inspired by art and architecture, he believes that food needs to be just as creative.
Now, in a one-of-its-kind collaboration, Humm and Eleven Madison Park teamed up with experiential restaurant Masque in Mumbai, for an exclusive two-day dinner, serving a 10-course, plant-based menu that bridged each of their approaches to food, cooking and cuisine. Before the dinner, the launch event saw Humm chat with renowned author and columnist Vir Sanghvi of Culinary Culture Co., on his journey, lessons learnt along the way and what makes a dish truly shine. Guests also sampled fare from the exclusive menu (curated by chef Varun Totlani and chef Daniel Humm) featuring plates such as black truffle tarte, tomato tea, puran poli tart with green pea amti, fried king trumpet mushroom with lemongrass and ginger, avocado pani puri, and sweet potato pao with pickled chilli and apple butter. The team had recently gone on a foraging trip across Kashmir to source ingredients.
In a chat with Travel+Leisure India & South Asia, the talented chef tells us about his views on reinventing fine dining cuisine, the inspiration he’s taking back home to New York, and his travels across Mumbai and Kashmir–be it sampling vada pav, going on a chivda and farsan trail in the city and enjoying quintessential Gujarati fare at Swati Snacks.
Excerpts from the interview with Chef Daniel Humm:
T+L India: You’ve often spoken about how our food systems are unsustainable. What in your opinion needs to change and how can the current narrative shift?
Chef Daniel Humm: We often feel that some of our traditions define us. Perhaps we all need to take a step back, rethink, and question these traditions. Let me give you some context. Our experience of turning Eleven Madison Park’s menu into a plant-based one has been so incredible. At first, we thought it would be limiting, but on the contrary, it has been liberating. I was so focused on European cooking for the longest time, that it was all the inspiration I would look for. Now that we have switched to plant-based, it’s been so much more inspiring. Take India for example. Plant-based cooking isn’t new here, it’s been practised for hundreds of years. In Japan, the Zen Buddhist cuisine is plant-based as well.
If we don’t wake up and make changes now, our food systems won’t be sustainable anymore. Some people arrive at a plant-based diet because of reasons varying from animal cruelty to religion and even health. But the one thing we can’t escape is that we have now arrived here because we are running out of resources. If we continue to eat the way we are, there won’t be enough to feed the planet.
T+L India: We are seeing a lot more conversation around this. Do you believe plant-based is the only way forward? What are some of the other sustainable measures the industry can collectively look at?
Chef Daniel Humm: Eleven Madison Park has always been a place for creativity and pushing boundaries. We decided to go all the way with plant-based menus and show what’s possible. But I believe the future is somewhere in the middle. Meat consumption has to be reduced significantly. What is on one’s plate is the single most powerful thing an individual can do towards climate change. If we choose to have vegetables on our plates even one or two days a week, that makes a huge difference.
Throughout my career, I have chased perfection. Today for me, it’s more about progress than perfection. Yes, it would be ideal if everyone ate plant-based but that’s not the most realistic scenario. When we started, our mission statement was to be the world’s most delicious and gracious restaurant. Today, our mission is to create positive change through human connection and the magic of food.
T+L India: Is there any inspiration from India, be it ingredients or cooking techniques, that you’re taking back home with you?
Chef Daniel Humm: So much! I have a list of dishes that I’ve tried here that I want to learn more about. I’ve felt like this whenever I have visited India in the past. The more I think I know about the country and its cuisine, the more I don’t know. There’s plenty I want to come back and explore. I’ve never been to Southern India and that’s on my list of places to visit. I’ve enjoyed sampling dishes such as kachori, millet upma, vada pav, a traditional dal bati churma at Aditi Dugar’s home and even Swati Snacks in Mumbai.
T+L India: Do you believe fine dining needs to be reinvented?
Chef Daniel Humm: I think it’s an exciting time with so many exciting restaurants and chefs around the world. Fine dining is evolving from the rigid and pretentious construct that it is known to be. But we need to rethink what luxury is. There are so many ingredients like caviar, which are now not a luxury ingredient, it’s just an old idea of luxury.
T+L India: Is there any advice you’d like to give to young, aspiring chefs?
Chef Daniel Humm: I often go back to a quote by Miles Davis. He says you have to know the rules before you can break them. Cooking is a craft so there are no shortcuts. Mastering your craft is the only way to do it if you eventually want to have a voice in your field. The movie Jiro Dreams of Sushi spotlights a father-son duo and the sushi restaurant they run. It’s only at the age of 55 that the son gets to progress to the next stage of even cutting the fish. So, my advice would be to just keep honing your craft.
T+L India: You have a new book coming out, Eat More Plants. Can you tell us a little about that?
Chef Daniel Humm: It’s a journal of sorts that I created during the pandemic. It’s where the idea for an all-plant-based menu came to life. It has drawings, notes, my fears and hopes— it’s a personal essay and the purest look into how this idea came to be.
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