Chef Daniel Humm’s Grub Street Diet

“When I moved to New York, I never thought that I would have only one job,” says Daniel Humm. The Switzerland-born chef arrived in 2006 to run the kitchen at Eleven Madison Park, which he bought from Danny Meyer in 2011 and where he’s been the sole owner since 2019. “It turned out to be this magical place that’s bigger than me, and it has defined my whole culinary career,” he says. During his time, EMP has become one of the most prominent restaurants in the world. It was global news when Humm announced in 2021 that the restaurant would serve only plant-based ingredients, just as it was last year when he announced that meat would return to the menu. Now, to mark his 20th anniversary there, the restaurant is staging a 20-day retrospective menu of its greatest hits, including carrot tartare, a clambake, and celery root cooked in pig’s bladder. Mostly but never fully vegetarian himself, he admits that when he dreams of meat, it’s the flavors of his childhood: “My mom would make these incredible osso bucos. Those are the things that I am drawn to most.”

Wednesday, December 31
We spent the holiday week at our house in Amagansett — me; my wife, Annabelle; and my two younger daughters, Vivienne and Collette. Justine, my oldest, was in Switzerland with her boyfriend.

Around 11 a.m. we stopped by Carissa’s the Bakery in East Hampton to pick up pastries. It’s something of a family ritual whenever we’re out there. They make incredible shakshuka. I had the pickled sourdough rye bread, toasted, with butter and a sprinkling of flaky sea salt. It’s very satisfying — tangy, warm, and slightly chewy — and doesn’t need anything else.

We kept lunch simple at the house, throwing together a few salads using greens we’d picked up at the farmers’ market earlier in the week. Nothing complicated. It’s so magical out there because they have these operating farms, so I just take what they have from the farm that day. I added roasted root vegetables that were earthy and a little sweet. It was something nourishing to fuel us ahead of a long night of celebrating.

For dinner, we went to a close friend’s place for a New Year’s Eve house party. My wife and I got married in June, and we celebrated with a vegan dinner at Eleven Madison Park. So it felt especially meaningful to ring in the New Year surrounded by so many people who were also at the wedding, including close friends and family.

My friends always have incredible taste, and the dinner table reflected that through beautiful cheeses and thoughtful wines. Someone brought caviar with potato chips; they had platters of crudités with hummus and smoked salmon. It was lovely because it wasn’t a sit-down dinner, more of a party, but not a huge party, so they just passed food. I sampled a bit of everything.

We contemplated “cheers-ing” at 11, but in the end, we stayed until midnight and got home around 1 o’clock.

Thursday, January 1
We had a slow morning at home, easing out of the night before. Just a few mugs of coffee.

I have a whole setup: A La Marzocco espresso machine with the little scale and everything. I make cappuccino in the morning, with regular whole milk and coffee from Devoción, which we work with at the restaurant. I have that machine everywhere I go: one at the office, one at home, and one at our house in Amagansett.

In the morning, I always make a green juice with ingredients like celery and spinach and kale and fresh ginger. And I have a spoonful of New Zealand manuka honey. Every night I also have a shot of high-phenolic olive oil from Greece. I’ve been reading about the benefits of manuka honey and high-phenolic olive oil; I’ve been taking them for about four years or so, and I feel great.

We packed up to head back to the city, and at 1 p.m., we did the New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge at Cooper’s Beach. It was a gorgeous day with a blue sky but freezing, like 20 degrees. We jumped in the ocean among 1,000 other people. It snowed the night before, and driving home, everything was in white. It reminded me of when I was a kid in Switzerland.

On the drive back home to New York, we stopped to pick up a couple of loaves from She Wolf. Back at the apartment in Flatiron, we made a late brunch: thick slices of the crusty, slightly sour bread toasted until golden; omelets with Gruyère cheese; coffee; and fresh celery juice. The eggs were soft, while the cheese was nutty and just melted enough. Starting the year this way, by cooking at home with my wife and daughters, felt deeply peaceful.

When I’m with my girls at home, we always try to do a pasta night. So we went to Eataly to pick up ingredients to make spaghetti pomodoro. I use a blend of tomatoes that bring different degrees of sweetness, cooked quickly with a little garlic and onion and a generous amount of olive oil.
When I’m cooking, everyone sits around the kitchen island eating snacks and cheese. I usually do the cooking — not because they don’t want to help, but mostly because I feel like it’s quicker and more precise when I make it. I like to have a bottle of wine open when I cook, but I’m trying to do a sober January, so I haven’t had a drink this year yet.

Before bed, I had my shot of olive oil. And I could feel the beginning of a cold coming on.

Friday, January 2
I work out before breakfast. Afterward, still in a festive spirit, we started the day with pastries we picked up from Lysée.

Lysée’s madeleines are a staple in our house. They are so tender and lightly crisp at the edges. We also brought home the chestnut brioche — I don’t indulge in pastries all the time, so it’s a treat when I do. It’s filled with soft chestnut cream layered inside a moist milk brioche, finished with a delicate crumble and a whole chestnut confit on top. Rich but not heavy and gently sweet, it paired perfectly with coffee for us and big mugs of hot chocolate for the girls. And we had fresh fruit.

After breakfast, I stopped by Eleven Madison Park to check in on preparations for our latest menu. We’re launching a 20-day retrospective menu that reflects on the last two decades of ideas and evolution. Lunch was an R&D tasting of the final dishes, a walk down memory lane of many of the highlights of my time at EMP.

We start the meal with a clambake, first on the menu in 2011. The clambake is a local traditional dish that’s usually quite casual, but we have a more refined version, using different clams with different garnishes. Some are raw, some of them are cooked, and the whole thing comes in a custom-made pot that holds a clam velouté in the center. The pot is surrounded by hot rocks, and we pour seaweed water over them at the table, which then creates the smell of the ocean.

There’s also celery root cooked in pig’s bladder, based on a traditional dish created by Paul Bocuse in the ’70s that originally used chicken. When it’s plated, it really looks like two white circles. There’s an L.A. artist named Paul McCarthy, and when he had the dish, he said, “Oh my God, I feel like I’m eating a painting by Robert Ryman.” It was the greatest compliment I’ve ever received; it was the first time in my career — after more than 30 years — I felt I did what I always tried to do, where it looked so simple but it had everything that a great dish needed.

We do these R&D tastings regularly. Each dish has been reworked since the previous tasting, incorporating feedback from the team and from me, refined again and again until it feels right. I gave the team a few final notes so they could make their last refinements before everything was locked in — even after all these years, that process still feels magical.

For dinner, the girls wanted pizza, so we went to Ceres Pizza on Mott Street. The owners, Julian Geldmacher and Jake Serebnick, are Eleven Madison Park alums, and for me it truly is one of the greatest slices in the world. I can’t order off of the menu there — they just make something. We took two home: one was with mushrooms, very simple but so delicious. And the other one was a classic with tomato and mozzarella: thin, balanced, deeply satisfying.

Saturday, January 3
Breakfast was coffee at Devoción with Annabelle. Most mornings, if we can manage it, this is our rhythm. We had lattes and shared a couple of pastries, lingering a bit longer than usual before work takes over.

Lunch was another working meeting. I met my co-author, Roda Ahmed, with whom I collaborated on our upcoming children’s book, Daniel’s Dream. We met at abcV; it’s one of my favorite lunch spots in the city. I’m always drawn to simple, well-prepared salads that feel clean but still satisfying. Lately, I’ve been loving the endive and castelfranco radicchio. It’s crisp, slightly bitter, and balanced with just enough richness to bring everything together.

For dinner, Annabelle and I stopped by Superiority Burger. It’s on the Lower East Side, and it’s a fun place that plays rock and roll and punk-rock music. It’s all plant based, and the food is delicious. We split a fried tofu burger and the collard-greens-and-melted-cheese sandwich. It’s impossible to choose between them. We also shared the pumpkin with chili oil, the fried halloumi, and the beets with goat cheese. Everything was bold and satisfying. It was the perfect meal for such a cold night.

I drank a shot of olive oil before bed. I now had a full-blown cold. I think I got it from doing the Polar Bear Plunge. As a chef, that’s terrible, because you can’t really taste, but I still have sense memory. I never finished high school, so everything that I know is through the language of food. I have a library of tastes and smells in my head, and they immediately bring me to a profound place. So when I come up with a recipe, and I know the ingredients that are in it, I know exactly how it needs to taste.

Sunday, January 4
After a long week of festivities and work, Annabelle and I had a proper date over brunch at Sant Ambroeus in the West Village. We came here a lot when we first were falling in love, and it’s a very meaningful place for us. I ordered the house omelet, which is exactly what I wanted: tender eggs, simply prepared, accompanied by water and a cappuccino. Sitting there together, unhurried, is the best feeling in the world.

For dinner, we met another couple at Borgo. In the summer, the restaurant has an outdoor garden, but now it has a fireplace, and it has an all-wood interior. Its sensibility feels European; not too many things on the menu — a few salads, a few pastas, a little fish, a great chicken. It’s a very honest place.

We shared several salads: chicories, citrus, and shaved kohlrabi, all crisp, bright, and balanced, each ingredient allowed to speak for itself. We also ordered a few of the pastas and the whole roasted branzino.

Since a trip to Greece last year, I’ve been gravitating more and more toward Mediterranean flavors and seafood — and Borgo does them beautifully. That trip actually inspired me to bring back a dish from early in my career for my retrospective menu: a poached tilefish with citrus, edamame, and white radish. I was glad my companions agreed to share the flaky branzino. For me, it’s never been about “meat or not meat” — it’s more about how we get to the food, you know?

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