Exclusive Update: The Chef Who Shocked the Culinary World and Why He’s Changing Course Again—Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park

In 2021, Daniel Humm shook up the dining world by making his 3-Michelin-star restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, 100% plant-based. No meat. No butter. No cream. It was a first in fine dining, igniting global headlines, industry backlash, and endless debate. Now, in an exclusive podcast conversation with Guy Raz, Daniel shares his next bold decision—he's reintroducing animal products. Daniel shares what he learned from his years of plant-based cooking and how the experiment forever changed his creative vision. This is a story about risk, reinvention, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. In this episode: How a creative rut at the peak of his career sparked a radical transformation. The hidden economics of running a world-class restaurant without meat. The backlash—and surprising supporters—of the plant-based pivot. Why EMP will remain 90% plant-based, but welcome more people back to the table. What Daniel believes is the future of fine dining. Listen to the original 2021 HIBT episode with Daniel Humm:https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/open.spotify.com/episode/1FGhK4QuATxNjgIDDDLfvc__;!! Iwwt! QHeDlJpPvQ36WQQdF30sbZTvY-hcc5AcFmI86rIDoUIGjZqftI4sa9tESssrOqQ2eSpEYxzl$https://wondery.com/shows/how-i-built-this/episode/10386-eleven-madison-park-daniel-humm/ Follow How I Built This: Instagram → @howibuiltthis https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/instagram.com/howibuiltthis__;!! Iwwt! QHeDlJpPvQ36WQQdF30sbZTvY-hcc5AcFmI86rIDoUIGjZqftI4sa9tESssrOqQ2edm8HiY_$ X → @HowIBuiltThis https://x.com/HowIBuiltThis?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Facebook → How I Built This https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/facebook.com/HowIBuiltThis__;!! Iwwt! QHeDlJpPvQ36WQQdF30sbZTvY-hcc5AcFmI86rIDoUIGjZqftI4sa9tESssrOqQ2eTiU4Yjr$ Follow Guy Raz: Instagram → @guy.raz https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/instagram.com/guy.raz__;!! Iwwt! QHeDlJpPvQ36WQQdF30sbZTvY-hcc5AcFmI86rIDoUIGjZqftI4sa9tESssrOqQ2ebaaoJNy$ X → @guyraz https://x.com/guyraz?lang=en Substack → guyraz.substack.com http://guyraz.substack.com Website → guyraz.com http://guyraz.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 5:18Speaker 00

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So normally, in this slot, we have an episode of the How I Built This advice line, which will be back next week. But today, we've got an update to a story we told a few years back. And we'll put a link to the original interview in the show notes, which is well worth hearing. Anyway, you might remember the interview with Daniel Hoom, the legendary chef at 11 Madison Park in New York City. In that conversation, he announced on this show in 2021 that he would no longer use any animal products at the restaurant.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  I think we've all been able to take a step back and sort of reevaluate. And in a way, maybe be a little bit more thoughtful also about the impact to our surroundings and the way we have sourced our food, the way we're consuming our food, the way we eat meat. It is not sustainable.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  That announcement rocked the world of fine dining. Why? Well, because Eleven Madison Park is one of the most iconic and celebrated restaurants in the world. In 2017, it was actually named the world's greatest restaurant. It's been awarded three Michelin stars every year since 2012. And when Daniel made that announcement, many people thought he was crazy. Up until that point, Michelin, which as you probably know is the most influential force in fine dining, had never awarded three stars to a purely vegan restaurant. Eleven Madison Park changed that and became the first ever purely plant-based spot to win the coveted three-star designation.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  Now, to put this in perspective, it's estimated that there are 15 million restaurants in the world, but fewer than 160 have three Michelin stars. In the US, there are just 16. And EMP, as the restaurant is known, seems to be blazing an important trail. Because even though these fine dining restaurants account for just a small fraction of food establishments, they have outsized influence on the industry. Sort of like how you might see a video of a Paris fashion show and wonder, who wears that? Only to see a version of it in H&M a year later. EMP was famous for its lavender-glazed duck and butter-poached lobster. It served the finest foie gras and caviar.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  But overnight, Daniel and his entire culinary team had to essentially relearn how to cook at the highest level, without demi-gloss and butter and cream or anything that came from an animal. They visited Japan and discovered all kinds of new ingredients, things like tonburi, which is a seed from a cypress tree found mainly in Japan that tastes and feels like caviar. They had to learn how to make pastries and laminated breads using only plant-based ingredients. But the move didn't come without some controversy. Plenty of people in the industry perceived the move as political. And some longtime patrons felt excluded, like the restaurant was just for plant-based eaters. Some of that pushback was hard for Daniel.

• 8:22Speaker 00

  He insists he never even imagined people would see the move as anything other than a creative shift. And of course, it did have an impact on the restaurant's bottom line. New York is a very expensive place to run a business. And it turns out, working with just plants is also more expensive because it requires more staff and more work to turn the food into something spectacular, which is what EMP managed to do night after night. It's still hard to get a table there. But to make the economics work, you need high rollers, patrons who are also drinking expensive bottles of burgundy and champagne. And those patrons, especially in New York, almost always want some meat as well.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  So after a lot of thinking and reimagining, Daniel Hoom and his team decided to evolve once again. Vegetables will still be front and center. 90% of the menu will stay plant-based, but a few non-plant-based items will come back. Daniel wanted to return to the show to explain his thinking and why going plant-based has fundamentally changed everything about his cooking forever. But first, I asked him to go back to the reasons why he went plant-based in the first place.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  After becoming the best restaurant in the world and having had three Michelin stars for a decade, we reached the number one spot in the world. And I started to feel a little restless creatively. I felt like I was sort of going in circles. When we created our dishes, it felt we were repeating a lot. We did the lobster with leeks, and then we did the lobster with butternut squash, and then we did... But it was sort of like, as a creative, it didn't quite feel like groundbreaking.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  What should have been the vein mountain top felt a bit empty. And the hardest part was, from that moment on, I no longer knew what was my north star.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  And so after the pandemic...

• 10:42Speaker 01

  I wanted to build the restaurant and our cuisine without using any animal products.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  I want to just break this down for a minute. First of all, here you are in your early 40s, having mastered cooking, the art of cooking, right? And all of a sudden, I'm assuming you did not know how to make something that tastes like butter without cream, how to do these things. You literally had to relearn how to be a chef.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  To me, that there could have not been anything more exciting. Also, I think there's so much magic in the cooking. It's almost like alchemy when you can transform a carrot into a luxury experience. I think it was really important to have such boundaries, to really exclude any animal products, to push this creativity the way we have, to find the answer of how to laminate

• 11:49Speaker 01

  a bread, how to make, you know, butter with sunflower oil, or how to make a ricotta with almond milk.

• 12:02Speaker 00

  How to make caviar out of a tree.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  How to.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  From a tree.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  And I've tried it, tandoori.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's from the cypress plant.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  Cypress, yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  And it is, yeah, I've learned tandoori, which is also referred as land caviar, but it's something that is used in Japan, mostly in the Zen Buddhist cuisine. And so, we discovered so much.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Things you didn't even know that existed before.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right. I'm celebrating my 20-year anniversary at 11 Madison Park, beginning of next year. And so, a quarter of that time, the restaurant has been fully plant-based. And our cooking has completely changed.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Everything about the way you think about food and make food has changed.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  We will never revert back to.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Butter glaces, chicken stock, the demi glace. It's fundamentally changed because we have learned in some ways to make things even better. Like, we started our own farm upstate, which we would have never done if we would have not been so focused on the vegetables.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  One of the things that I think is important to point out is that I don't believe you were trying to send a message to the world saying, "Don't eat meat, stop eating meat, stop eating animal products, restaurants should stop serving it." That was not in any way what you were saying. You wanted to use the vehicle of the restaurant as a way to encourage people to think differently about plant stuff. Fair to say? I mean, you were not condemning the consumption of meat.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  I mean, in this case, I believe my naivete was an asset.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  Your naivete to make the decision to go plant-based?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, because if I would have known all the things that I know today, I don't think I would have had the courage to go down this path. Our decision created a global debate that far transcended food. And this is something that we were not prepared for. For a lot of people, going to a plant-based restaurant isn't a choice of cuisine, but it's like a life's choice. And with this change, some of our guests felt excluded.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  They had the feeling of not being welcome anymore.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  That it was just for vegans?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's not like, "Oh, let's have Korean food tonight, or let's have, let's go to a steakhouse, so let's do plant-based tonight."

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  And that's what you thought this was gonna be?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  You thought, "Oh, it's just gonna be another type of cuisine."

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  "Let's get a French food tonight, let's go to a Persian..." No. The thing about plant-based or vegan is that...

• 15:18Speaker 00

  Most people think of it as a lifestyle change shift. That you, is your either that or you're not?

• 15:23Speaker 01

  It was almost like a political view. And I never intended to be part of a political debate. We just wanted to cook vegetables because it's better for the planet. And we love the creativity that it brings.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  The restaurant, you know, got some outstanding reviews, also had some really harsh reviews.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  That was tough on you and the team. But were you surprised at some of the backlash? Some of the, you know, some of the backlash from people who were genuinely angry at you and at this decision?

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Well, in the early days, the experience inside the wall of the restaurant didn't match sort of the incoming criticism. And I think that to us was confusing. And also, we felt so empowered and satisfied by the experience and by the learning that we just continued. And then slowly, things started to turn around.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  I remember sort of early on, the cattle rancher from Texas. And he sent me this long letter. And the letter was sort of like, he decided for his 40th birthday to have dinner at 11 Madison Park, a fully plant-based restaurant, as a cattle rancher. And he said his wife was confused about that decision. But then he said, as the meal goes on, and he's eating all different types of asparagus, the morals, and the spring onions.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  He's realizing that he is having

• 17:36Speaker 01

  one of the best meals of his life, if not the best meal of his life. And so that conversation really interests me because now we're really having a conversation. So I think all this was very motivating for me because I do believe a restaurant has the power

• 18:04Speaker 01

  to make an impact in the world. And this is definitely something that continues to be on North Star.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  And

• 18:16Speaker 01

  when we were invited to the Mishla ceremony in 2022, I was unsure.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  If you would retain your three stars.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  What would happen?

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Were you nervous that night?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  I was very nervous because I knew how crucial it was and how much of a milestone this would be in the world of cuisine. There's never been a restaurant that received three Mishla stars with a plant-based cuisine. So Mishla created fine dining, the rules of fine dining. They're the guardians

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  of this very classical way of cooking. And that night when it was announced that we are the first restaurant to receive three Mishla stars, it did feel like we're walking on water.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Do you, I mean, from a business perspective, right? There's a lot of pressure because you aren't just the chef, but you're the owner.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  And you manage a team of like 200 people, I think. It's a huge number of people who depend on you and the restaurant for their livelihoods.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Were there moments over the last four years where, I don't know, you felt, I don't know, not up to the task? Did you have self doubt?

• 19:46Speaker 01

  We definitely saw a dip in revenue because the audience we're catering to became a lot smaller. And we've learned that cooking plant based is more also dependent on the seasons. In the spring and summer, it's an easier sell. In the fall and the winter, it's harder for people to wrap their head around it. It's selling less wine.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  And wine, you need to sell a lot of wine in order to sustain a restaurant. I mean, you're in Manhattan.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  The rent is high.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  Salaries are high.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  It's a big staff.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  It's a luxury experience. You do 100, you serve 100 people a night, right?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 00

  And even if you're fully sold out every night.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  For months and months and months and months, which you have been.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  It's not enough to sustain when it's, when.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  When you don't sell the wine.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  When you're not selling the wine.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  And when you don't sell your private events, which are like events for 30 or 40 people.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  It's very hard to have people buy into an event when you don't have a signature roast.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  And does only using plants require more labor, higher labor costs?

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Our labor cost went up by like 20%.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Like it requires more cooks to bring that magic to the carrots and to the onions. So yeah, it's, it's, it's gotten harder from a, from a business perspective. And our guests at times have put us in this box. Our goal at the end of the day is to welcome people around the table. And everyone is welcome around the table. That is the highest purpose of a restaurant. If it's what's on the plate or what's not on the plate keeps people from coming,

• 21:51Speaker 01

  then that would be devastating and we would be missing our mark. And when we listen to all the feedback.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  We believe that it is time for another change.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, Daniel explains for the first time his next big step at 11 Madison Park. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz. You're listening to a special episode of How I Built This Lab.

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• 26:09Speaker 00

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So, four years after shocking the world of fine dining by turning his three-star Michelin restaurant into a 100% plant-based operation, Daniel Hoom says it's time for another important pivot.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  I understand now that for most dining at a plant-based restaurant is more of a life's choice than a choice of cuisine. I feel incredibly lucky that I've had the privilege to see this creative endeavor through for almost five years. But I've made the decision now that it's time for another change. And, starting in October, we will reintegrate a few animal products, such as fish or shellfish.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  And yes, we will bring our duck back, our honey lavender glazed duck. We've always listened to the feedback and what we've heard is that to be the most hospitable version of our restaurant today is to offer a choice. Our use of animal products will be deliberate, with the base of our cuisine staying plant-based and offering individual experiences to some of our guests' preferences so that we can welcome everyone around the table, the whole family.

• 27:48Speaker 00

  So, you came to a decision to reintroduce some meat, some animal products, right? And...

• 27:59Speaker 00

  Was it hard for you to come to that decision? Or did you feel like, you know, I tried this thing?

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  And it's changed what I do, how I think, how I cook. And this is the next chapter of that. Because inevitably, you know this, people who hear about this and find out about this, there are going to be some people who say, oh, it failed. This experiment failed.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  It was a process, of course, to get to this point. Because when we made this decision, we dove all in hard. And we had to. You have to really firmly believe of what you're doing and where you're going. Otherwise, it feels dis genuine. And that was very much where I was at in the pandemic. I wanted to create the first plant-based restaurant.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  That receives three million stars. And the voices around me were like, this is not going to work. This will fail.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  People who were your friends and supporters.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, people had a lot of doubts. We created a new language. We created a new cuisine. We wrote an entire new book called The Plant-Based Chapter. It's fundamentally different.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  But we have over 200 people working in a restaurant that serves 100 people. The Martians are razor thin. And it requires for us to be full all the time. It's the only way you can maintain this level and this team. And so, yeah, but it is possible. We just got to continue to also have that hat on. It's not just a creative endeavor.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  It's a business.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  It's a business. And I think if we want to continue to be part of the conversation.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  It has to be sustainable as a business.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Do you think that, like, I think the analogy would be like, if, because a lot of people ask me, you know, they'll sort of say, well, why are these sort of Michelin three-star restaurants? So a lot of people talk about them, very few people dine at them, you know.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  There are many more people eat at a red sauce Italian place, right?

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  But the reason they're important is because it's sort of like, why is, you know, the runway show in Paris important? Like, we're not all wearing that, but we will wear things that are inspired by that in a year from now.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  We'll find them in Main Street shops. And it's similar with, like, fine dining restaurants. They, that, they sort of set the tone that trickles down to food. I mean, inevitably, right, there are going to be all kinds of reactions. And, and that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but there will be people who say, well, you know, it doesn't work, it can't work, you can't have that, you can't sustain a restaurant at that level. What do you say, like, what's your response to that?

• 31:27Speaker 01

  For me, it took a long time to come to this next step of, of evolution. And, and part of it was because we put so much, this, like, flag in the, in the ground.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  And people saying it's not going to work. And you don't want to be like, some of those voices, maybe they had a point. Part of what they're saying, there was some truth to it.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  You feel that way?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  I feel that it's such a big change. It's a change in our industry, was a change to our suppliers. So I think, I think there's a lot of fear that comes up with that. I don't know all the reasons why people said, this will not work. But if it was for the reasons that it wasn't inclusive, then I think they definitely had a point. But to me, it, it very much is a success because...

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Our restaurant today is fundamentally different. And now we're incorporating a few animal products where we're going to be very deliberate about what these are. And we studied a lot the Mediterranean diet. And we traveled with our team to Greece and to Italy. And you know, that diet is mostly plant-based.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  Just a little bit of meat.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  It's a little bit of fish and a little bit of meat for special occasions. It's also what Michael Pollan has been preaching.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Right. Mainly plants or...

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Eat little and mostly plants.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  And you mentioned Greece and Italy. And was that trip, did that start to turn the gears in your head again about the next iteration of what you want to do and how you want to present food?

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like I started to realize that to create real change, we can't be as dogmatic. And when we looked at ancient cultures, which none of them have a lot of meat in their diet, but it's also not no meat.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I think it's important that where we're heading is informed by ancient practices, but then also modern techniques. And then we're finding a place in the middle.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  So, moving forward, when somebody, I mean, the idea is at EMP, somebody is going to dine there who would not have gone there before because they didn't feel like it was for them.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  And they can have some duck if they want, and there might be some cheese. But you want them to walk out having been exposed to...

• 35:14Speaker 00

  Preparation of vegetables that they would not have eaten anywhere else. Like, like, they were, they're gonna walk out of that experience saying, wow, this was like, like, the best thing I had was the, you know, the carrot cooked 15 hours at, you know, low temperature, whatever, whatever it might be.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  My goal is that everyone can be around the table, and different dishes are gonna resonate with different people. We have created a new language of cooking that is based in plant-based cooking. And if you want, you will have the choice for a fish, or for a lobster, or for a duck. We're not anti-meat, but, but, but we are pro-planet. And we believe that we need to reduce the consumption of meat in the world.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  And that is a fact. That's not something I came up with. But, so if we can celebrate vegetables and have a little bit of meat, or a little bit of fish, I think we're in really good shape. And that will really move the needle.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  So probably, a lot of the things, like the, you know, the desserts and the bread, will still be-

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Fully plant-based.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  There'll be no animal products at all. You're gonna have cream in your desserts, or butter in the croissant, and-

• 36:41Speaker 01

  You know, I think when we find a product that we're really excited about, that we wanna highlight, this could be a cheese, and this could be a butter, or it could be a cream. And when the dish becomes about that product, then we will use it.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  But we will not just mix it into every single dish, like it used to be. But any great product-

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Has the potential to become a dish of 11 Madison Park if that becomes the main focus.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. And will you will you have to reestablish some relationships that you lost?

• 37:26Speaker 01

  You know, it was really interesting when we made this change. We did get some we upset some, we, some people were upset.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Some of our suppliers were upset. And they felt like somehow we are turning our back on them. Which of course, in a way, we did because we stopped ordering certain things. But this was never meant to be personal, or this was never meant to be about a supplier, or even some chefs, I could feel they were a little bit rubbed the wrong way. Because maybe they felt that maybe there's some changes coming.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  And maybe they need to start changing certain things. But this wasn't ever about anyone else other than what I wanted to do as a chef. And I was in a creative rut. I wasn't fulfilled. I had the opportunity to create something entirely different, to learn about new cultures I never looked at. Traveling India, traveling Japan, learning about the San Buddhist cuisine. Going to the Middle East, all these places. It's changed my life. It's changed me as a chef, and I'm extremely grateful. And the team is grateful. Today, I feel like

• 39:07Speaker 01

  our cuisine is its own. Before, I think it was always a version of something that already existed. And today, I feel like I really found my voice. Today, the cuisine is very authentic to 11 Madison Park.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  After the break, what Daniel thinks his decision means for himself and for 11 Madison Park. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to a special episode of How I Built This Lab.

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• 41:23Speaker 00

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So along with his decision to put a few animal products back onto the menu, Daniel's grappling with what it means to him creatively as a chef, as a businessman, and as a leader. You know, from an outsider's perspective, right? Especially for a young chef, or anybody in food, or anyone really looking at your career and you, you know, they see you, right? You'd be perceived as somebody extremely successful and, you know, Michelin three stars and all these accolades. And I wonder how you see yourself.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  I'm full of self-doubt, especially with where we're going next, you know, in the process after everyone told me this is not going to work. And I sort of came to the conclusion that we want to continue to evolve. We don't want to be stuck in this box. And sort of, at times, I felt like, well, I'm a fraud. All these things, the flag that I put in the sand is now people are going to look at it as like a weakness. Are they going to judge me for being weak, for not standing for my beliefs?

• 42:44Speaker 01

  And of course, I have all these thoughts in my head. But then I also have to remind myself that in order to evolve, we do have to push boundaries. And then we learn. And then at times, we pull back. And then we push in a different direction, and then we pull back. I feel like it's kind of human nature. And I think if we want to continue evolving 11 Madison Park, if I want to continue to learn as a chef, that's part of the process.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  And, you know, I'm so grateful to the community of, the plant-based community, who has been celebrating our work. It's given me a lot. And I do hope...

• 43:43Speaker 01

  That now that we're pivoting slightly, that now the plant-based community doesn't feel like we're turning our back.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Because that's not at all what we're doing. It's really to go deeper on this, to continue on this. We want to welcome everyone at the table.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  Part of being, running a restaurant and a business is you have to, you're a leader, right? You have to exercise like leadership skills. And so this is a change. And there are people who are on the team, some of whom came and joined you because of this.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 00

  Because you went fully plant-based. So it's going to be hard for some people.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  How are you, how are you going to manage that, you know, that sort of friction?

• 44:40Speaker 01

  I think, you know, my team is, is everything to me. And a lot of people have been with me for a long time. I think the people who've been with me for a long time, they've gone through many different changes with me and we all understand that we're always going to continue to evolve and listen and, and adapt. So in that sense, everyone has lived this experience and everyone is sort of like itching for an evolution from here.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  There are people who have joined our restaurant because we are going down this path and, but they're also all in the hospitality business. And that's really why they are working in a restaurant. And I think. They hear these feedbacks of people say like, oh, I wish my brother could be here as well, or I wish my husband would understand what this is, but he's not willing to do it. And so we're all living this experience and I think people will understand, we are not reverting back to the restaurant we were.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  We're a changed restaurant forever on. And the thing about EMP is change is in its DNA. There is a quote by an artist, William de Kooning, that really resonates with me and he said, I have to change to stay the same.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  And this is, couldn't be more true for 11 Madison Park.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  The restaurant industry in general is having, is sort of, I think that the word crisis has been used, that might be a bit much, but I mean, there are a lot of challenges, right? There are, I hear from people I know in the industry, you hear it from chefs who, you know, restaurants are closing for a variety of reasons. Part of it is cost of labor and just to sustain the pace of running a, especially a fine dining restaurant. I'm sure you've been, you've sort of seen these conversations happening, you know, on the margins or even, even actually it's on center stage around the future of fine dining. Like is, is that model, right?

• 47:14Speaker 00

  Is that model sustainable? Is it going to be how people eat in 10 or 15 years, you know?

• 47:22Speaker 01

  To me chefs are incredibly important as we're seeing our food.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  System change, our supply change. This cannot be in the hands of politics. This has to be in the hands of chefs and farmers and the people actually on the ground. Fine dining will always be, will always exist. Because it's, it's, it's the highest form of, of cooking. It, it's like saying there won't be any ballet anymore or any classical music or. I mean, this is part of the culture.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  I think it's important that it continues to exist and that we continue to celebrate it. And, and I believe very much, I think the way, this is always kind of swung in a pendulum where we're very focused on casual dining and then eventually we become more focused on fine dining and maybe now we're in a place of, in the more casual, but, but it will swing back. It, it is important. It's also where a lot of the education happens. Like the amount of people who have come through EMP or through the French Rondé or

• 48:55Speaker 01

  to Single Threat or through any of these great restaurants. It is tremendous and these people are working in casual restaurants, but they've gotten the training from these fine dining restaurants.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  So I think it's imperative that these restaurants continue to exist.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  So here you are, right at this next chapter. And now we might talk about this chapter in five years. Where do you see yourself in, you know, in 10 years from now? Like where do you see, because you're, you're still young. I mean, you're, you know, you're not yet 50. I think that's young because I'm 50. But, I mean, you have.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  All of these things that you probably want to do, and you're involved in different projects, I know.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  Where do you see yourself in 10 years from now? And what do you want to be doing?

• 49:53Speaker 01

  I mean, 11 Madison Park has been my life. I've been there for 20 years. I could have never imagined that that would become my home for so long. But I'm so grateful and I feel that my work with this restaurant isn't done yet.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  But I think, and especially I think this next chapter is really crucial because I do believe that we are really now landing in a very healthy place, where it's fundamentally a different restaurant, but one that welcomes everyone. And so that is something I want to see fully through. And in a weird way, I feel like for the first time ever, the restaurant feels complete after 20 years being there. And my goal is for this restaurant, this restaurant deserves to be

• 51:01Speaker 01

  one of the great restaurants for many more decades. And I don't think that's in me, to be able to continue that story. We have incredible team members who are much younger, who hopefully one day, someone can take the reign and continue that story. My dream is that in 30 years, the restaurant is as important as it is today.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  But that's an exciting sort of conversation and something I'm looking forward to solve over the next decade.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  That's Daniel Hoom, chef and owner of 11 Madison Park in New York City. Just a reminder, we'll put a link to my original conversation with Daniel from 2021 in the show notes. It's a great episode and well worth hearing.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you're new to How I Built This, check out our archives, almost 700 in-depth interviews with the world's greatest founders, all available to you for free. Just scroll down in your podcast queue. And if you want to support this show, it's really easy. Do two things for me. Click the Follow button on your podcast app. It's free, by the way, and you'll never miss a new episode of the show. And the second thing, tell people about the show. We make HIBT to help you think about business, leadership, ideas, and how to start something that has impact. You can also get free advice by signing up for my newsletter at guyraz.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by Catherine Seifer with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our engineers were Robert Rodriguez and Sina LaFredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Kerry Thompson, Noor Gill, Ramel Wood, Sam Paulson, Deepa Grant, and Elaine Coats. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.