‘Eating meat is going to feel like smoking one day’: Eleven Madison Park’s Daniel Humm on its plant-based menu, and using his voice for change

Daniel Humm, recently in Hong Kong, is in no doubt that eating meat and dairy products is the leading human activity contributing to climate change

Having turned his three-Michelin-star New York restaurant plant-based, he aims to persuade diners a luxurious meal doesn’t require meat – or caviar

Reading Time:3 minutes

Daniel Humm of three-Michelin-star New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park at Asaya Kitchen in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, with whose chefs he recently collaborated. Humm is out to show diners they don’t need to eat meat to have a luxurious experience. Photo: Edmond So

Published: 4:15pm, 24 Nov 2023

Eleven Madison Park in New York has retained its three Michelin stars the past two years despite having switched to a plant-based menu, but that is not what motivates its chef Daniel Humm these days.

“My goal is to have a restaurant for everyone and for people to see they don’t need to have meat to have an amazing time or to have a luxurious experience,” Humm says.

“I believe it’s really doable. I think eating meat at some point is going to feel like smoking cigarettes in restaurants one day.”

The celebrated chef, who was in Hong Kong this month for a collaboration with Asaya Kitchen at the Rosewood hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, says he realised his personal and professional purpose when restaurants and their staff were hit by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shiitake Mushrooms with Rice and Sansho Peppercorn, served at Eleven Madison Park. Photo: Instagram/@elevenmadisonpark

It presented him a chance to give back to the community. “I turned the restaurant into a community kitchen,” says the 47-year-old chef. “I co-founded an organisation called Rethink Food to prepare meals for people in need. And that’s what we did for two years during the pandemic.