When I put my creative hat back on, I knew that I had changed, and I knew that I had no interest in reopening the same eleven Madison Park as before.
Hello, this is Martha Stewart and this is my podcast. And following is probably the longest introduction of any of my podcasts to date. First Michelin Star, at age twenty four, the number one restaurant in the world. More than a decade of three Michelin Stars, Chef Daniel hum has earned the highest accolades in the culinary world. He is the ambitious chef at the Helm of eleven Madison Park, a fine dining restaurant in the Flat Iron District in New
York City. Eleven Madison Park turned twenty five years old this month, and chef whom is here to talk to us today about its history and the distinct ways in which it has evolved, including its most radical reinvention to date as an entirely plant based restaurant. Welcome to my podcast.
Thank you so much, Mark, Chef.
Let me call you, Chef, Well, you just celebrated the twenty fifth anniversary of your beautiful restaurant. I live in Madison Park. Congratulations, can you tell us a little bit about the history about Danny Meyer in the beginning of this iconic.
Rest Of course, thank you so much for having me. The restaurant opened in nineteen ninety eight before me, Danny Meyer opened the restaurant, And as you said, it's in the Flatiron District, and it's right adjacent to Madison Square Park, and it was quite visionary at that time to open a restaurant in that location because Madison Square Park wasn't what it is today. Today it's a beautiful park, but back then it was quite dilapidated, and that whole wilrio
wasn't what it was to do. And that's I think the beauty to see how a restaurant actually can change a neighborhood. And I think Danny Meyer deserves a lot of credit for that. I think he has done that in a lot of places in New York City. He opened a restaurant as a barrassary. The restaurant is located in a historical building. The building was meant to become the tallest building in the world. It was built in nineteen twenty eight. Then the Great Depression hit. They ran
out of money and just the build was halted. Actually the building is an entire city block large, but it only is thirty stories tall, and it was meant to be over one hundred of What we ended up with is these gigantic arches for the entrance of the restaurant, even the lobby, which is where our restaurant is located. The scale is as if you would be in the tallest built in the world. So were the beneficiary of those scales.
It's so amazing to walk into that restaurant and feel so surrounded by very tall ceilings unlike any other restaurant, and so luxurious in architecture.
I mean, for me, when I first stepped foot into the restaurant, I just knew that I had entered one of the most beautiful restaurant spaces I've ever seen or ever been in, And it was clear that it had the potential to be something very very special.
And who was the chef when Danny Meyer opened the restaurant.
The chef was Carrie Huffernan, and he was the opening chef and he remained the chef until.
I joined, and you joined in what year?
I started in two thousand and six. In January two thousand and six, I was briefly in San Francisco for two years before coming there from Switzerland, where I grew up. Yeah, I've been there also eighteen years in the twenty five year.
History, and an amazing eighteen years it has been. It's been you do not You're like the rolling stone. You don't get covered any moss anywhere. Boy, you just you evolve and evolve and evolve and change and so great. I love that about you.
Thank you so much.
So what are you doing to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary? Are you eating silver? Have you figured out a way to cook silver?
No? We actually, you know, it was it was an interesting, interesting question. I mean, we created a money that is a retrospective and pays homage to all these years and all these there's been many different chapters along the way. And you know, as you said, we turned the restaurant into fully plant based after the pandemic almost three years ago now, and the big question was, you know, are we gonna cook the fish and meat dishes from the
past to paid tribute. But our team felt very strongly that no, we are now you know, fully committed to this plant based journey.
So don't go there looking for doc.
No. The doc won't be there. But what it was interesting, even as a refresher for us, it was to see that, you know, this actually didn't happen overnight. We always were creative with vegetables, and we always loved to really push
vegetables to the foreground. Even there. There's a dish that is the Kara Turtar, and this dish was created in twenty ten, and at that time we knew we wanted to be an iconic New York City restaurant, so we studied the iconic restaurants like the twenty one Club or the Four Seasons Restaurant or the Delmonicos, and what we saw is that they all had a version on a steak tartar on their money. So we're like, well, we
also need one. And for like a year we worked on that dish, and we worked with different dry aged beef and venison and all kinds of things, and we just couldn't figure out how we would add something new to this dish. And after like a year, we knew that we wanted to grind the meat table size in one of those old school grinders, but we couldn't figure
it out. And then one day I spent time in Warwick, New York, up state, and I spent time with this farmer, Alex Pathnroth, who is like a master in growing carrots, and he talked my ears off for an entire day about the sweet carrot, about the medic carrot, about the
city carroda. And so by the time I came back to the restaurant that night and we were having another sort of like R and D session, and I looked at the carrots and I looked at the meat, and it was just clear that the best version on a steak tartar, even in our eyes, even in twenty ten, ended up actually being a carrot tartar. So this has been and sort of like long in the making.
Guess what I just had the other night. Tell me I had beach tartar, Oh my god, at the Stone Barns. Amazing and it was incredibly delicious. And it's their new beat. They have just developed a new beat, you know, they develop hybrids of all kinds of vegetables, and this kind of red light red beat tastes just like steak tartar beautiful and it was wonderful. And so here I'm coming back to taste the twenty eleven, So what's in it?
I mean, I just wanted to also give a shout out to Dan Barber at Stone Barns. I think he's a real pioneer in growing and cooking the vegetables. And I have so much respect for love credible.
Job at Stone Barns. I mean, it's hard for me to eat real steak tartar now after tasting the beat. And I want to taste your carrot. I have beautiful big carrots in my garden, but what kind of carrots should we be using? Old carrots? New carrots?
We used this like French carrot called charon.
Yeah. Oh I had that, Yeah, that one.
And that to me, that is like the best for this dish.
It does it matter if the carrots are like a little bit old in the ground with hair on them, It.
Does not mess. It matters. It's actually no, it's actually not good. It's actually sweetness. And we even leave some of the We actually leave even some of the skin as we're doing the dish because it has a little bit more often earth.
So you grinded the old hand grinder. Oh yeah, I'm coming right away for that. I want to taste. So how did you meet Danny Meyer in the first place. I mean you were in California.
Yeah, you know, Danny Meyer came. I was at a restaurant called the Campton Place.
Oh. I loved Campton Place, And yeah, I used to stay in that hotel really. Oh yeah, when I started going on book tours. So nineteen eighty two was my first book tour, and then in nineteen ninety ish I stayed at the Campton Place and I stayed there until until it kind of like lost its luster. But it was such a lovely and who was the original chef there. He was very famous at the time.
It was Bradley.
That's right, Bradley. And where is he?
I don't know what happened to you. I know he opened the restaurant in Las Vegas at some point he did.
Oh, he was such that was innovative food. It was. So that's where you went to The Campton Place.
Yeah, and they had a history of a few very successful that was on a park also, yeah, it was. But Danny Meyer ate there and I was really brand new to America and he ate there and and then three days later.
He got an offer.
He called and I didn't know who he was, and then I said, who is Danny Weyre And then everyone was like, yeah, you should probably take that call. It was also interesting he he sort of had this opportunity of eleven Madison Park, and I said, you, you know, I really love New York and I could really see myself in New York. But in three days we are actually going to get four stars, which was the highest
rating in the San Francisco Chronicle. So I told him that the timing might not be perfect, because when you get this kind of award, you want to stay for a while and kind of show, you know, because then everyone is coming.
And so you were you were you the chef at the time.
Yeah, yeah, But then there was actually an ownership change in the hotel as a family owned and then a big chain kind of bought it, and then it all kind of worked out. I visited New York, I met with Danny, we walked through the space. I had the feeling that this could be one of the great restaurants in the world.
What did you learn from Danny Meyer, who is still very active in the restaurant world. He took his company public after he built a Shakeshack.
I mean, I learned so much from him, but I think one of the big things is he put language around what we are doing in restaurants, like the way we take care of people, the way we take care of ourselves. He just put language around all of it. He made it more noble.
He made it a very important industry.
I think that's not right.
And he brought hospitality to that world, didn't he.
He made it something you would be proud of to be part of it.
And you have continued in that tradition very nicely. I must say, yeah, thank you really wonderfully. So where did you grow up? I mean, go, let's go back. I want to know a little bit more. I mean, you grew up in Switzerland where.
I grew up in Zurich. I grew up with hippie parents. In fact, I grew up eating vegetarian very few times. Once in a while we had like a chicken from some farm. But this is like twice a year kind of thing, but mostly vegetarian. But I also had kind of a difficult relationship with my parents, and I was I left home when I was fifteen years old to
become a professional cyclist. All I cared about was bicycle racing and winning bicycle races and then when I was twenty two years old, I had an accident and biking and I were in a race, in a race in Switzerland in the Alps, in the Alps, and I ended up being a hospital for quite a long time. I was in a coma.
Actually, did the parent your parents come to visit you?
They didn't come to me.
By that time you were reunited.
Yeah, I love it, okay, yes, but I did not even you know. And then growing up, I was this kind of weird kid that would bring the school lunch in a glass topper wear and there was we only had home baked things, and I always felt like embarrassed towards the other kids who had like things from the grocery stores. And I wanted to have that, but I never did. But then I realized how lucky I was to develop this love for real food and real taste, and becoming a cyclist. What I ate became very important
to me as well. And then when I had the accident, I left school when I was fourteen years old, so I didn't really.
What happened in the accident described the hideous accident.
It was in a race and we trained on the course. It was a mountain bike race, and we trained on the course the whole week leading up to it. But then in the race, I was at a very different speed and I just it was in a curve and I thought I could take the curve at a high speed and I just couldn't. I went over the rocks. Thankfully I didn't hit my head, but I had a lot of internal bleedings and a lot of broken bones, and iirlifted.
And you would never know this from looking at at the handsome Daniel home right now, and you walk very straight and very and very nice. So you're all better.
I'm all good, and you know, I'm definitely dedicated to that work. I'm practicing yoga almost every day, and I recommend it to everyone. I think if there's one activity you should do for the rest of your life, it should be along the lines of yoga or pilates. I think it's beyond crucial.
Very important. Well so so twenty three, you're so so.
Then I was in the hospital and I'm like, you know, I do have this love for food. And actually you might know this restaurant, but it was a restaurant Freddie Share day.
It was like Freddy, Sure, Oh gosh, I Madelgrimages.
And this is actually where I went to go. Really it was at that time the only three star restaurant in Switzerland.
And you know, he was extremely innovative and extremely beautiful food.
One of the founding fathers of like novel quis what we know today as a fine dining and he loved cycling, so he was obsessed with cycling and the cycling culture. And we were there with our team when I was like eighteen years old and we had a big race and on the way home he actually invited our team. I was part of the Swiss national team, and he invited us to have dinner and we had dinner in the kitchen and it was the first time I saw
a professional kitchen on that level. There were like twenty chefs and everyone impeccable white, impeccable cleanliness, and they were working like it was a ballet. And there I felt like, wow, cooking on this level is kind of like a sport. And when I then was in the hospital, I'm like, I want to do that, and I called him and it was on a Friday, and he said, can you start on Tuesday? And at that time there was a waiting list and people waited two years to get a charge.
He took me and I made cooking my new sport, and it was about winning, and it was about working for the best, becoming the best, and then eventually it was about winning awards.
So then at twenty four years old, you actually won a Michelin Star.
Yeah. So two years after I left Freddie Shure day and I went to go work in this small inn in Switzerland. And I was only there for four months, and then I got a call from Michla and they said, well, there's been seeing what I'm doing. I'm going to get a Michelin Star.
And say, what was the name of that restaurant.
It was called Ghosthouse, some beautiful restaurant overlooking the Alps and the lakes. It was outside of Sankolin. But you know, Martha, I was not ready for this at all. Like I didn't know who I was as a chef. I didn't know who I was as a person, and all of a sudden I got all this attention that was quite difficult and overwhelming.
And it would have longed to stay at that restaurant.
I only stayed there two years. Also, and one day I got a call from a hotelier in San Francisco who happened to be Swiss, and he said, oh, he heard about my cooking, and I'm looking for a chef to move to America and I would love for you to come. And in my head it was like, oh my god, like I never thought of America as like a culinary destination. And I didn't speak English at that time. Wow, And so I said, you know, this is probably not
for me, but thank you. But he was very persistent and he called again, and eventually he invited me to come to San Francisco to visit, all paid for, which at that point I was like, okay, I'm going to take that opportunity. And I remember and this was Campton Place was Campton Place, and he was there, I remember
so well. The hotel GM waited for me in his silver BMW at the airport when I arrived, and he took me right up to the Napa Valley and we went to go see whinyards wate at the French Laundry, and then on the way back we went to Shapanice and then we saw the farmers market at the Ferry Building, and within four days I was sold. I saw an energy and an excitement for food and artisans and farming
like I felt like I never saw before. And after I left, it was clear to me that I wanted to be in San Francisco.
Well, and then you accepted the job. I accepted the to go back to Switzerland and finish up some stuff.
Yeah, I went back to Switzerland. I finished my job there. I also had to get a visa and I actually you got a CHA one student visa for one year, and I came back on a Lufthansa flight. I didn't know that much about Campton Place or I was just excited about the city. I was lucky because Campton Place had a history of all these well known chefs, so people paid attention what was happening there. And again there
things happened so quickly. I got a Chain Spirit award within the first six months, as like rising Star Chef. And this was actually the first time I moved to New York City. And again I didn't speak English.
How did you learn you're speaking so well now?
Well?
Did you take courses?
No courses just in the kitchen. I never went to cooking school. I never taken English courses.
Are these the only two languages speak French, French and English and English. Yeah, yeah, wow, it's very very impressive.
Yeah, my path has been that. You know, I never finished even high school, so I think I learned a lot on the go. And it's been okay.
So you stayed at came from place for how long?
Two years?
Okay?
And then Danny Meyer came and I moved to New York because I felt that New York was the place to be. And Andy levin Madison Park, I've never seen a more beautiful restaurant. And I felt like I could stay there for a long time.
And did you come as the chef at that time?
I became as the chef and then I had a business partner in the dining room.
That was Will.
That was Will Yes, and then that's.
Will good Era. Everyone you've heard, I hope my podcast with Will. We had a nice conversation in this room. And he was so excited when you won the World's Best Restaurant award that was twenty seventeen.
Yeah, well so yeah, it was incredible, but it was it was mixed because for me, it was all about winning and I wanted to win every award, and we won all the awards, and as we were going. I always understood intellectually that none of these awards are that meaningful. But what was meaningful it was that it gave something to talk about with your team. It gave the team a direction. It's easy to understand. It's measurable too, and it does make the restaurant better and better and better.
But the problem was, as we won after the other after the other, when we became the best restaurant in the world, there was not a single award that was left to win, and so it was actually quite disorienting, and I knew that there had to be.
Some to start thinking about reward. After awards, you think about the reward and the money and the financial success and getting everything in all your ducks in order right.
And that's complicated too.
Very cool, you know, and you were with Will for how long he was your was he a very very close partner.
We were super close to I mean, we built so much together. I think we were very successful and powerful as long as we had the same goal. And I think we spent every day talking about how to become the best restaurant in the world, but we never talked about what happens when we become the best restaurant, but not for five minutes. We just never talked about.
Not about expansion, not about We.
Really didn't talk about that. And then the moment we became.
How did you celebrate when you won that award the best restaurant? How did you guys celebrate?
I mean, we definitely always celebrated. We always have parties. And actually Questlove, who is a friend of mine, came and DJA the party at eleven Madison Park. And when we became the best restaurant in the world, it was also right before when we closed the restaurant for eight months for major renovation, and right before that we had a huge party with Quest Love, and he told me that this was the longest DJ said he's ever played. He played till like six in the morning, and it
was a blast. And then we renovated the restaurant, and then I think we all sort of tried to figure out what the future looks like and where to go next, which wasn't an easy twenty nineteen or something like this in twenty eighteen eighteen, Yeah.
And so is that when when you split your partnership split up?
Yeah, So we decided to go different paths because we didn't see eye too, I anymore?
And personally were you worried? Were you single? What? What were the two of you doing personally?
Personally? Will was married and I have had been divorced for five years at that point, so was single.
Yeah, so you you were totally business focused, but or cooking focused.
The thing I'm trying to still find an answer for. But I am so focused on my work and it's truly the number one priority in my life, and it's what I think about when I get up, and it's what I think about when I go to bed. And I really love what I do so much. But sometimes I wonder, you know still how to find the balance in life. But maybe this is not exactly for this lifetime. Maybe in this lifetime it's meant to be very Balance is.
Very hard to find. I think men have more trouble finding balance than men have because men's careers are usually a life career and women change a lot. But it is hard. Balance is extremely difficult. And balancing a social life, a business life, of travel life, whatever. Oh, it's so hard. So so you dissolve the partnership.
Yeah, and then the pandemic hits, the pandemically.
Evil twenty and twenty twenty twenty years.
It's devastating because if you think about it's almost every ten years, So it was like two and one and then ten years later the financial crisis and then pandemic. But the pandemic we had two hundred and fifty employees at that point. We had people from all over the world.
And there was one night, I think it was March sixteen, twenty twenty, when the city got shut down, and I remember our restaurant was full, full, full till the last day, and then we took the whole staff together and we said, hey, you know, the city shutting down, we're probably going to see each other again in two weeks or so. That team has never been together ever since. I mean we were close for almost two years, two entire years no business.
And it didn't happen.
Yeah, And you know, in real estate people talk about location, location, location. In restaurants, it's about people, people people. So no matter how beautiful the restaurant eleven Madison Park is, without its incredible people, it's just an empty shell. So that was really heartbreaking and we had to grabble around that. We're also facing extreme difficulties financially because if you have no business and you have rent and still costs, you can't pay it, So we're actually facing bankruptcy.
Were using all owner at the time.
At that time, I was the solow Yeah, and I am a co founder of an organization called Rethink Food. We take food from restaurants, we cook meals for people in need. And because of that, I was super tapped into what was going on around food and security in New York City. New York City has eight million people before pandemic, there's a million people of food insecure. Within the first two weeks of the pandemic, I can just imagine the number doubled. It's twenty five percent of New
York City being food insecure. And I'm not speaking about homeless people. These are people with three jobs just having a hard time bringing food on the table.
And kids, yeah and so, and kids at home who eat more at home.
Because were not in schools, the schools.
Which they relied on.
Yes, So now I'm sitting here having lost my team, facing bankruptcy, which I don't wish anyone, but I knew I had a space, I knew had access to some cooks, and I knew that the farmers are also sitting on food that's going bad. So I decided to turn eleven Mileson Park into a community kitchen, and we brought a team back within the first three weeks of the pandemic, and we raised some money and we just started cooking meals for people in need. And at the height, we
cooked eight thousand meals every single day. And that work changed my life because not only did we cook the meals, but we also went out into the neighborhoods, like I went to neighborhoods. And I've been living in New York for twenty years, and I felt guilty. But I live in a very small sliver of New York City, and all of a sudden, I'm in parts of Brooklyn, in East New York, I in Harlem, i' mean Queens. I'm in all these places, and I'm also meeting amazing people,
these amazing angels. There are people who do in God's work, people who give everything, who have very little, and so not only all of a sudden, I got up in the morning, in the midst of the pandemic, and I felt a happiness. I felt like I wanted to get up. I felt like my work, my cooking. For the first time in my life is actually making a difference, and
so I knew that I had found something bigger. And during the pandemic, I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to open eleven Madison Park again, because I felt like I brought what I wanted to do, become the best chef in the world. I feel like I did that. I didn't know what else there is to do. And the truth is, in the end, it made me feel empty all the awards, and I did it for my
ego and my team's ego. And so during the pandemic, I realized that I wanted to do something that was more meaningful and it had to be about giving back in some way. Six months into the pandemic, the landlord called me, a big landlord in New York City, s el Green they called me, and I thought, oh, maybe they're going to kick me out and it's over. But they actually called and say, hey, we see what you're doing. We want to be in support whatever it will.
That's a very nice organization.
By the way, it was unbelievable.
They've done so much for New York and the hospitality industry.
So they forgave all my rent.
Wow.
And when I. At that point, we still didn't know how long it would take to reopen, or how long the pandemic would take. And when I put my creative hat back on, I knew that I had changed, and I knew that I had no interest in reopening the
same eleven Madison Park as before. And I felt the responsibility because eleven Madison Park is this native platform we push boundaries, and so in terms of creativity, I knew that the world did not need another version on a bother poach lobster, or on a steak, or on our famous doc. But creativity had to go towards plant based eating.
And so that's what you did. And I have tasted this delicious food. It is. It is unusual. Yeah, it is curious in many ways, and it does not disappoint.
I mean, vegetables are so beautiful.
I love vegetables that you can see you walk through my vegetable bard. It's still productive, even almost almost November as we as we speak.
At first, we thought maybe this would be limiting because we leave all these things behind that we were known for and that we cooked for years. But when I look back today, I feel like we were limited before. I feel like before we were cooking seasonal condiments for fish and meat, and today I feel like we create the entire cuisine and what a main course could be.
So what are some of the other vegetable dishes besides the carrot tartoar? What else are you serving?
Well, we started our own farm called Magic Farm in upstate New York, in Husick, New York, which has allowed us to you know, explore even deeper. So like, for example, in the summer, we are cooking sunflower hearts, and in factually we take the sunflowers, we harvest them right before they open up, so they're almost like little artie chokes. So we work with sunflowers. We have a vegetable that's sort of like Chinese led us, but it's called cell tows and I love the roots.
The restaurant, that's right, and the menu was Celsius. Yes, I think we had at least five courses with Celsius. And the children kept looking at it and saying, is this the same vegetable? It was very interesting. And Sulta's is like the heart of a like an almost like a heart of a big fat escroll in a way.
Isn't it. Yeah? I think that's right. Yeah, I think that's right. And it tastes a little bit like I would say, it's a little bit between a cucumber and the celery, but it has also this like beautiful taste of yeaeah.
So you've figured out how to cook that in many ways.
But vegetables are really truly limitless, and especially here in this region.
Are you using a centrifuge with your vegetables too? Do you use that? We don't use that because Nathan Mervill taught me all about making like pea butter or carrot butter in a in a centrifuge.
Amazing.
Yeah, you put peas in there and what is left after it spins a you know, thousands of rotations a second or you're left with the essence of the peas it takes. It's like a butter because there's a lot of fat in it.
Yeah, of course, and.
I bought one. I bought a centril future right away. You should experience. Have you visited Nathan's food lamb I have. It's so extreme, but I mean he's to him too. Vegetables are limitless.
Yeah, it's UNBELI it is.
And that's the future. By the way, we have to know.
It's so beautiful. It's also so much healthier. You know, like even in the dining room before, it was like the energy in the dining room it was like very high as people were starting their meals, and then by the time they got to the main course, it kind of like crashed and everyone was sort of like ready to roll out of the restaurant. And now the energy
the night goes on. It's unbelievable, how great. And I don't know if it's maybe because of the fermented foods, but it's also much more lighter, and people tell me all the time, like people sleep so much better, they feel so much healthier. I mean, it's it's it has a lot of beautiful side effects beyond the delicious meal.
My daughter is raising her kids as vegetarians. They eat a little bit of fish, but very what monitored because of the iodine poisoning and stuff. But you recommend it highly.
Yeah.
You know, as an athlete, how many athletes for vegetarians these days?
There are a lot of them. Yeah, the runners and runners, endurance athletes in general. I mean there's football players, there's tennis players, I mean all over.
What kind of impact is the plant based emp having across the whole industry, what do you think.
You know? I do believe that doing this at the highest level. I understand it's not the most accessible because not everyone can eat at eleven mess in Park, but I do believe we have an important role in those establishments, sort of for leading the way. It's a little bit like in fashion. It's like the things that you see on a runway, you know, you end up seeing at Sarah and H and M. And I think the same is true in restaurants. I think it does influence. For me.
It was also about sort of like the luxury. I think we need to value vegetables more. I think we still have this perception that a piece of meat is more valuable than a carrot or a celt to use.
Well, it's getting to be more expensive, first of all, and fish fish, I mean palab Now at my local fish Longer is forty five dollars a pound. Who can afford that?
No, for me, this came as a reaction. I'm no climate expert or food systems expert, but I'm an expert in what I see coming to my kitchen in terms of ingredients and mark I've seen such a dramatic change of like ingredients have completely disappeared. Certain ingredients used to be wild and other arm the way they taste has changed a lot. I mean it's it's changing rapidly and we need to find new ways. And in terms of cream.
Do you miss any animal based products?
I don't miss it at all.
Isn't that great?
I don't miss it at all. It's been so beautiful. And you know this is not like and butter.
Do you cook with butter?
We make our own butter. We make a sunflour out of sunflour oil. We make our own butter.
What do you use for milk or cream we make?
We use different not milks that we then ferment. You make your own and so we make this beautiful fermented almond milk that's unbelievable. We make our own cultured butter. We make these beautiful stocks of all these different vegetables.
I love vegetables stack.
Yeah, it's so incredible.
When I peel my vegetables, it all goes into a rich, rich vegetable stuck. I don't miss I don't miss meat either when I'm when I'm not eating it.
In terms of climate, and we're not anti meat but we are pro planet and in terms of for the betterment of the climate, the single most powerful thing an individual can do is to choose what's on your plate. And even if you eat vegetables like one day a week or two days a week, like, you don't need to go from all to nothing. But we need to
adapt towards a more plant based diet. And you could arrive there in many different ways, Like you could arrive there for animal welfare, you could arrive there for farming practices, you could arrive there for health, you could drive there for climate. But the thing that you will not be able to escape is that we're actually running out of resources. There's a study that came out that I just read that said eighty percent of the farmland in the world
is used for animal farms. It accounts for eleven percent of the calories. It's actually not an effective way to even feed the planet. In that same study, it's aid by twenty fifty we will need three planets to feed.
The animals, to feed the animals that feed.
Up exactly, so we cannot continue to get it the way we are. And the good news is vegetables are delicious, beautiful, healthier, and I think that's what we're here for to do.
Daniel had never come to my farm before. And you walk, you walk by the chicken coops. I mean, I have beautiful chickens. They lay beautiful eggs, beautiful. The feed is atrociously expensive. It's very expensive. I value the eggs because they eat all the spent vegetables in the garden. I go to my vegetable market. Don't tell anybody, but I get crates of trimmings of the cantalopes and the melons, melons and watermelons for the chickens. And they love eating
all that. They love it, and it does make better your eggs, right, But indeed, the cost of raising the chickens does not pay for the money I could get if I sold the eggs. It just doesn't know.
And it's also, I mean, this is a very romantic way of how you.
Live up, very romantic, but difficult.
The quantities we need, it all becomes industrial and it's not realistic.
And I can't visit a factory farm.
I can't.
I can't anymore. I've read all about it. Where did you get your knowledge about it? Just by Do you visit any of those factory farms.
I have visited it some and you know, it's quite horrible, and you don't even need to dig that deep, like you see it very quickly, and it's really not something you really want to in.
New York State, you see it one percent.
Yeah, yeah.
And the cruelty of raising animals in that way too, it's just horrific. I agree. And that's why, you know, my diet has become less and less and less orientedreds of meat products and much more to vegetable.
You know, we read about the chickens have bird flu, you know, that's the real thing. We read about the plastic in the ocean, that is a real thing. We read about the Amazon burning because of cows and land, and we read about all the antibiotics that's in these animals. And the truth is, even if you're a small restaurant, let's say you need you have forty guests, and you need forty chicken breasts, and that's a tiny restaurant, and
that is twenty chickens. And so just imagine, like if a restaurant needs twenty chickens each day, now they need over one hundred chicken a week, that already is no more a small farm. No, So it's just not realistic. This idealic idea of like this little farm with the chicken coop is not a realistic one.
What are you serving for Thanksgiving?
This is another point. I think we have the opportunity to change traditions. We can honor the old traditions and still somehow have them with us, but traditions actually need to evolve. And I know, I love Thanksgiving, It's one of my favorite holidays. It's so beautiful.
But are not squashes? Were looking really good.
Isn't it. Why do we eat turkey? Like most people do actually not know why do we eat turkey? Most people don't even like turkey. Most turkey that's being served is anyway overcooked, And so forty five million turkeys are being slaughtered on Thanksgiving? Now just where are they? And I haven't seen a farm with like this kind of amounts of turkey. So I think we have the opportunity to change traditions and like beautiful stuffed squash with stuffing and like braced in the oven, and you can still
have all the cranberries and all the side dishes. And that's what we're serving. That's what we're doing at the eleven Mudson Park.
Yeah, it's admirable and also different and also healthier, and you are helping change tradition. You are. So you start your farm, I have to come up and see your farm. How many acres of vegetables are you growing?
We farm on six acres. We have more acres, but today we're farming on six acres. We have four greenhouses. About sixty percent of all our vegetables are from our own farm, and it's been incredible because we can influence what vegetables we're growing. But then we also bring the composts that we have in the restaurant goes back to the farm, and so we created this kind of circular system that's also much more sustainable. And it's been just
a beautiful path. And we're celebrating twenty five years of the restaurant, but truthfully, I feel like we're at the very beginning. And it's so special to have this excitement for a restaurant that has been there twenty five years. I mean, this restaurant has been my life, but today I feel more excited about it than I have ever before.
How many other vegan or vegetarian restaurants are there in New York. Has the number increased over the last ten years?
Would you say definitely? Definitely. I mean it's definitely sprouting out, and there's new ones all the time. And I think, you know, plant based cooking isn't isn't new. I think there's a lot of other cultures that have been doing this for many, many years. I mean I was just in India, and of course India forty percent of the population is vegetarian actually, and you know, of course other Middle East only forty. Yeah, but it's a lot, I mean in comparison to one percent in the US.
Are we only one?
Yeah? Yeah?
What have you learned about cooking without animal products that would surprise us?
Well? I think one thing is that people always teach you, or is being told, how much protein we actually need. We actually don't need as much proteins as people tell us. We actually need very little. And I think a lot of the protein can come with plant based cooking, from nuts and lentils and legumes and beans and so forth.
And with that, I would recommend we actually use most nuts and most legumes that are all sprouted, because it's much more healthier and your body takes it in much more cooking plant based has also opened us up to the entire world as we're studying different cuisines like the sand Buddhist cuisine in Japan, or you know all the Middle Eastern countries which have this amazing, amazing, amazing cuisine India. I was saying, but but in a way, I feel much more free and much more opened to the world.
It has also completely changed the audience that comes to a restaurant. Our audience is much younger today, Our audience is much more diverse. Our audience is much more thoughtful about the planet and not just about the indulgence of a of a luxurious meal.
So you have a restaurant in Las Vegas that we have that in common. I have a restaurant in Las Vegas.
Yeah, we had the Nomads and but actually right before the pandemic we were able to sell it and and we ended that.
Because it was a beautiful restaurant.
I loved it. It was great.
I love the library feeling that in that restaurant. Yeah, the chef character in the TV showed the bear, did he really work and living as park?
No, he never worked at eleven Madison Park. But you know what, I actually just recently watched the show, and I think it's so well done, and I think the acting in it is really unbelievable. There's second the first episode in the first season, in like one of the latest.
Seasons, that restaurant drove me crazy. It was so dirty that restaurant.
But there is this monologue scene where he speaks about all the pain and the creativity that comes from that, and I think that definitely kind of hit home. I think the show is super well done and there's definitely a lot of references on eleven Madison Park.
Well, what's your favorite part of running a restaurant and what's your least favorite?
My favorite part about running a restaurant is all the people that we get to be around, the people I get to work with every single day. Like the creativity. We get to do something creatively and collaboratively, and then we get to share that with all the beautiful people that come to experience it. I think there's so much life in that and there's such a beauty in that. I think that would be my favorite part.
Can you reproduce eleven Madison Park the Vegan Restaurant elsewhere?
You know? I think we definitely want to bring plant based eating into the world more than just with eleven Madison Park. Eleven Madison Park, there's only one in the world, and there will always only be one in the world. I think it is so special and we really have to protect it for what that is. It cannot be replicated, in my opinion, but there's definitely ways of, like, you know, creating a more casual version of a plant based restaurant that is definitely interesting to me.
Well, this has been such an interesting conversation. I've learned a lot. I'm sure our listeners are just they can't wait to try your food, and I thank you, Martha. I think they can't wait to learn more about plant based eating. Yeah, and cooking, and you can get chef Whom's new book, Eat More Plants describe the book for everyone.
So Eat More Plants was in a way never really meant to be a book. But I journal, and I draw and I paint, and during the pandemic I did a lot of that and it was all around my ideas about reopening plant based restaurants and about painting and drawing vegetables and sort of like really seeing this come
to life. And this is how my creative process works, and I got to meet this incredible publisher called Gerhartstitle who has published some of the greatest art books like Ed Rushe or Richard Sarah or Joseph Boyce or Ronnie Horn. And one day he came to the restaurant and he was very touched by the meal, and he asked me,
what is my creative process? And I told them, well, I journal, I draw, I write, And then he asked me if he could see those drawings and journals, and he came the next day to my office and he looked at everything and he said, I would love to publish a book on those. And it was a very vulnerable thing because none of the they're very intimate, and none of this was created to be ever seen by anyone, and so that was like a process, you know, to
get there. But then I've spent a few weeks with Gerhardt in Gutting and Germany to create this book that today I'm very proud of, and it's a very intimate look into my creative process and the reimagination of Eleven Matterson.
I'd like to read this one little sentence. What the pandemic has taught me is that purpose brings happiness. Winning awards is important, but it's not everything, and that's seems to be what you're living by right now. I mean, it's just incredible, and page after page in this beautiful book, I could frame almost every single one of these and have a wall of your art. This is very interesting and beautiful.
Thank you so much.
We have a unique platform at eleven Madison Park. It comes with a responsibility, so your philosophy is here and you must try very hard to visit eleven Madison Park when you're in New York City. Call far ahead for reservations and bring a fat pocket book because it's expensive. But I think you will enjoy the atmosphere, you will enjoy the service, and most of all, you will enjoy a plant based meal the likes of which you have never tasted. So thank you Chevulm. It's so nice to have you here.
Thank you so much. Marta, what a pleasure. Thank you, thank you,