Just the Tip
Daniel Humm is back on meat. Add "You can trust a chef guy" to the list of greatest lies ever told.
We all needed a laugh, didn’t we?
The restaurant industry let out a collective one this morning upon hearing the news that Daniel Humm’s acclaimed Eleven Madison Park would be reintroducing animal products to their plant-based menu. Well, not everyone is laughing— few are more zealous and humorless on the subject of meat than vegans, who have been called up for duty in the comments section of the restaurant’s Instagram. “Sad!” they exclaim. At the time of publishing, a medley of 1,380 animal lovers, trolls, and internet menaces have feverishly smashed the little heart next to one commenter’s “Disappointed button.” My personal favorite is the comment calling Humm a “d bag,” not because I necessarily agree but because the time feels right to bring “d bag” back into the cultural lexicon. Someone named Kelly seems to be reliving a high school breakup— “I thought you cared,” she says.
Now is as good a time as any for Kelly to learn, people lie. They’ll lie to you, and they’ll lie to themselves. For those of us letting out a self-satisfied “I told you so” giggle today, the truth isn’t always so hard to see. A chef of mine once taught me (somewhere between how to score a baguette and how to fix a broken heating element in a deck oven) the three greatest lies ever told:
“The check is in the mail,” “No, sweetie, that dress doesn’t make you look fat,” and “Just the tip.” I’d add a fourth: that you can trust an egocentric chef guy to stand for anything.
Eleven Madison Park (EMP, if you will) did not, of course, begin as a vegan establishment. During the peak of its reign as New York and the world’s best restaurant, its signature dish was a duck breast lacquered in lavender honey. Celeriac was braised inside a pig bladder, lobster was baptized in a pool of butter, guests scooped caviar from an EMP-branded tin. Luxury ingredients were served alongside novelty experiences; for a time, the dessert course was revealed through a tableside magic trick, developed by professional illusionists using a custom deck of cards. It wasn’t until May of 2021 that Humm made the decision to go plant-based. At the time, he quoted the environmental impact of the meat and seafood industry, alongside a desire to redefine luxury, as his reasoning for the shake-up. Vegans and climate activists rejoiced at having such a high-profile advocate. Meat eaters scoffed. Industry folks either hitched a ride on the bandwagon and exclaimed that it was the dawn of a new era in cooking, or outwardly questioned how vegetables would pay the bills. Discourse ensued.
I worked for Humm from late 2017 to early 2020; any of us on staff could have recited his belief that you have to change in order to stay the same. That stagnancy and irrelevance are brothers, that innovation isn’t a novelty but a survival mechanism. There is a sign anointing the EMP kitchen, one that lists the eleven words the restaurant is meant to embody. “Endless reinvention” sits second on the list, inspired by the jazz sensibility of the great Miles Davis.
One could extrapolate, then, that a move away from animal products was just as much a business decision by a for-profit enterprise as it was an ethical stance. I’d also classify Humm as a Girlfriend Guy. Call me cynical, but I don’t find it a coincidence that his move away from animal products coincided with his romantic relationship with Laurene Powell Jobs— climate activist, erstwhile vegan, and billionaire widow of the man who created whatever iProduct you’re using to read this post. The same year that EMP’s menu went plant-based, Powell Jobs committed $3.5 billion toward addressing the climate crisis. Chatter from the restaurant group’s inner circle all but confirmed that Humm’s decision was influenced by LPJ’s views. Or, rather, that her views had become his. Earlier this year, Humm married actress Annabelle Dexter-Jones. Currently, the stools lining EMP’s bar appear to be upholstered with leather.
As my therapist has taught me, sometimes it’s okay to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Say, use your considerable power to influence an industry towards more sustainable methods, all in the name of love or bottom line (depending on which ways your speculation leans). In today’s announcement, Humm acknowledges the restaurant’s finances as a motivator for the about-face. It’s more difficult to convince people of the value in a vegetable tasting menu than one featuring Wagyu or caviar at the same exorbitant price. And what about that key word, taste? Critics largely panned the vegan menu, with Pete Wells describing the scent of a beet dish as reminiscent of a burning joint. In November of last year, a friend and I waited over an hour in the bitter cold for EMP’s bakery pop-up, Bake It Nice. I went more out of morbid curiosity than enthusiasm; there’s not much I’ll wait in line for, but I’ll suffer to prove a point. The chestnut-flavored viennoiserie made with vegan butter tasted like plastic, as if Mattel melted down Christmas Barbie, then laminated and wrapped her into a pretty, if rank, gift.
What, then, of Humm’s original reasoning for going meatless in the first place, his commitment to the sustainability of the natural world? If we’re looking for the truth, the most telling is the way Humm is backing away slowly, his hands up in self-defense. Or is that a hapless shrug? Humm suggests that this reversal back to animal products is, in fact, an act of hospitality. “I very much believed in the all-in approach, but I didn’t realize that we would exclude people [by going vegan],” he is quoted as saying in the NYT this morning. According to his press release, he “need[s] to create an environment where everyone feels welcome around the table.” At a restaurant that charges $365 per person for a tasting menu, exclusivity is part of the schtick. It’s a feature, not a bug. Meat eaters and vegans and everyone in between are welcome, but first, how much is in your wallet? It seems what Humm is trying to pull off is another sleight of hand, an optical illusion to convince us that, despite backtracking on his proclaimed values, he still has some.
There is a theme to the greatest lies ever told: people are always trying to trick you into giving them something. Time, peace, opportunity. Don’t fall for the illusion.
As always, thanks for reading.
Getting “Lobster baptized in a pool of butter” tattooed