The truth about what New Yorkers really want to eat bit Eleven Madison Park on its precious, plant-based butt this week, with the announcement that chef/owner Daniel Humm’s menu would no longer be exclusively vegan.
But what took them so long to come to their snooty senses?
For 15 years, Humm ran the kitchen at EMP to global acclaim, earning three Michelin stars and a spot atop the World’s 50 Best Restaurant list in 2017. Then, in 2021, he abruptly switched to a vegan menu.
It laid a big, fat egg — an item forbidden on vegan menus — with Big Apple critics, who ridiculed its three-hour, nine-course prix-fixe meal starting at $350 a head.
They particularly piled on a beet that was laboriously tweaked and tortured into a stand-in for duck — “cooked 18-ways [and tasting] like pretty much any other beet” (Adam Platt on Eater.com) and “tastes like Lemon Pledge and smells like a burning joint” (Pete Wells in the New York Times.)
I could have warned Humm against throwing out his beloved EMP dishes such as lacquered duck in favor of a rigidly purist, vegan menu that seemed more about striking a blow at “animal exploitation” than about making customers happy.
I didn’t go back to EMP after it swallowed the vegan Kool-Aid. Root vegetables and laboratory-tweaked seeds without meat, fish or dairy products are neither my — nor most people’s — cup of tea.
I order steak only occasionally, even in steakhouses. But to the chagrin of “save the earth” types who put animal consumption on par with war crimes, beef in many shapes and styles is the runaway favorite dish of New York’s dining millions.
They want steak. More than Italian, more than Japanese, more than tacos. Just count the seats!
It’s as hard to book tables at Daniel Boulud’s great new American steakhouse La Tete D’Or, which opened in November, as it was at EMP in its animal product-serving prime.
La Tete was preceded by a stampede of giant, successful new steakhouses: Delmonico’s, Brooklyn Chophouse Times Square, Beefbar, Mastro’s, Hawksmoor, Bourbon Steak and Le Relais de Venise. Then there’s the just-opened Mexican-style Cuerno and Korean-inspired Gui. In recent years, we’ve also gotten a second Brazilian-style Fogo de Chao at the World Trade Center, a third Capital Grille, a second Rocco’s, a second Del Frisco’s and a third Empire Steak. A new outpost of Cote is coming soon in Midtown.
Meanwhile, vegan places such as Modern Love, Seasoned Vegan and Blossom have been folding, as my colleague Jennifer Gould reported, with owners hilariously blaming their flops on “congestion pricing.”
The truth wasn’t lost on real estate king David W. Levinson, who in early 2015 tapped Humm with much hoopla to run a traditional high-end restaurant at his then-rising 425 Park Avenue.
When Humm made EMP vegan in 2021 and announced plans to do the same at 425 Park, which had just opened and was seeking office tenants, Levinson went with another chef.
“We didn’t want a vegan restaurant at 425 Park Avenue,” Levinson told me in 2022. “I want [Humm] to succeed, but it was a no-brainer not to have a vegan restaurant.”
Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Four Twenty Five opened in the high-rise in late 2023 and had been consistently full ever since.
After the early hysterical vegan buzz subsided, EMP could no longer count on booking lucrative private parties, which are most restaurants’ cash cows. Even for many regular customers, EMP was a one-time, try-anything affair. Not enough diners wanted to blow a second fortune on an interminable meal without any animal-derived products, not even cheese, butter, honey or gelatin. I had fine vegan dishes at the original Cafe Boulud and at long-gone Del Posto and Brushstroke, but as part of longer tasting menus — not as the entire menu, which EMP forced on us.
Starting on Oct. 14, 2025, EMP’s web site says, “In addition to our plant-based menu, we will offer select animal proteins for certain dishes — including fish, shellfish, and poultry.” Wowee! But —wait for it — there’s pointedly no mention of beef.
Humm said he didn’t intend for his original menu to “unintentionally keep people out.” I hope his new menu options draw a wider clientele. Otherwise, EMP might soon be RIP.
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