Eleven Madison Park

Chef Daniel Humm’s Grub Street Diet

"Described as a magical place that turned out to be bigger than me and defined my entire culinary career, this restaurant has evolved into one of the most prominent dining rooms in the world. It has gone through bold shifts, including a fully plant-based era and then the reintroduction of meat, and is now celebrating 20 years with a 20-day retrospective menu of greatest hits like carrot tartare, a clambake, and celery root cooked in pig’s bladder. The clambake reimagines a local, traditionally casual dish in a refined way, using different clams with different garnishes, some raw and some cooked, all presented in a custom-made pot with a clam velouté in the center and hot rocks around it that are doused in seaweed water at the table to create the smell of the ocean. The celery root in pig’s bladder, inspired by a Paul Bocuse dish that originally used chicken, looks deceptively simple on the plate — just two white circles — yet it gave me one of the greatest compliments of my career when artist Paul McCarthy said it felt like eating a painting by Robert Ryman, encapsulating my goal of creating food that appears simple but contains everything a great dish needs. Regular R&D tastings, where dishes are reworked again and again based on team feedback and my own notes until they feel right, keep the experience feeling constantly refined and almost mysteriously alive." - Ben Widdicombe, Ryan Inzana