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In June 2021, Daniel Humm reopened Eleven Madison Park after the pandemic, this time with an entirely plant-based menu. The restaurant thereby became the first in the world with three Michelin stars on that basis.
The reaction was divided in a way that can still be felt. The New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells lowered his rating from four stars to three, and the criticism was as much about the price and the principle as it was about the food. The Michelin stars remained.
What is technically interesting is what a kitchen does when butter, cream, stock and gelatine disappear. Fat, umami and texture have to come from somewhere else, and the answer was fermentation, mushroom stocks, nut milks, long reductions and koji. That is the work the book documents.
The fact that it did not appear until 2024, three years after the change, makes a difference. It documents the transition as practice rather than as a position.
Published as an expensive boxed set and physically one of the most lavish cookbooks produced in recent years. Contested, significant and difficult to feel neutral about.
Format: Hardback in multiple volumes
Number of pages: 400
Language: English
First published: 2024
