Expensive Eleven Madison Park in New York to become completely vegan
Only vegetables, mushrooms, legumes and herbs: that’s what will soon be on the menu at one of New York’s most expensive restaurants, Eleven Madison Park. The doors of the Michelin-starred restaurant will reopen on June 10 as a one-hundred-percent vegan restaurant.
During the forced coronavirus closure of his business, Daniel Humm, the chef and owner of Eleven Madison Park, started thinking about the current food system. It really can’t continue like this, he believes. ‘It isn’t sustainable,’ he says. ‘It’s clear that after the past year, we couldn’t open the same restaurant.’ The lockdown was very tough on Humm and his staff; he even considered stopping his restaurant altogether. His collaboration with Rethink Food, an organization that arranges meals for homeless people in New York, made a deep impression on the chef involved.
Expensive lettuce
Switching to vegan is a major change, because the restaurant was famous, among other things, for its signature dish featuring suckling pig, its famous sea urchin and its duck breast with lavender marinade. Yes, all fish and meat are disappearing from the menu. Humm is making one small exception for honey, because he likes it in his tea, but otherwise: everything will be plant-based. It is not yet known what the vegan menu will look like.
The website says that a menu of eight to ten courses will be served in the restaurant. At the bar, guests can order a shorter tasting menu, or a few vegan bites with a glass of wine or a cocktail. What is known is that the prices will remain the same—and in this case, that means sky-high. Business newspaper Forbes writes cynically: 335 dollars is a lot of money for a little head of lettuce.
Vegan fans
Veganism is winning fans. A few months ago in France, restaurant ONA received a Michelin star, the first for a vegan restaurant in France. Chef Claire got her plant-based restaurant off the ground thanks to crowdfunding, because not a single bank saw any potential in it.
Also read:
- Eating vegan within the Arctic Circle is almost impossible
- The shocking truth about vegan cheese
- Vegans share the saddest desserts they received on their birthdays
Source: New York Times, Forbes
