A native of Switzerland, Chef Humm earned his first Michelin star at the age of 24. He is consistently listed as one of the world’s best chefs, with both he and Eleven Madison Park receiving numerous accolades: including four stars from The New York Times, seven James Beard Foundation Awards (including Outstanding Chef and Outstanding Restaurant in America), and three Michelin stars for over 10 years in a row, since 2011.
In 2021, he made the radical decision to re-open Eleven Madison Park with a fully plant-based menu. This move sent shockwaves through the fine dining industry and has set Chef Humm and EMP on a world-changing trajectory — becoming the first plant-based restaurant in history to receive and retain three Michelin Stars.
Chef Humm is the author of Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook, I Love New York: Ingredients and Recipes, The NoMad Cookbook, and Eleven Madison Park: The Next Chapter, and Eat More Plants.
He resides in New York and is a lifelong patron of the arts, supporting local and established artists through collaborations for Eleven Madison Park and other initiatives.
In 2003, Humm moved Stateside, swapping Switzerland for San Francisco to take up a position as Executive Chef at Campton Place, where he received four stars from the San Francisco Chronicle. Three years later, Humm made the fateful decision to cross the US to New York City to team up with business partner Will Guidara and open Eleven Madison Park in a location they bought from Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality. With Humm in the kitchen as Executive Chef and Guidara front-of-house, the pair hit on a winning formula. Humm's creativity came to the fore with an haute gastronomy of sophistication, radical creativity, and personality, as Eleven Madison Park shook up the world of fine dining with a reinvention of excellent service and high culinary experience. With the melding of kitchen and front-of-house functions, the restaurant employed a bespoke, personalized service, and with Humm's artfully plated, highly considered, refined cuisine, Eleven Madison Park rose to the very top of fine dining, ranking first on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2017, and earning three Michelin Stars.
Restaurant
In 2019, Humm announced he was to buy out Guidara from Eleven Madison Park as well as the other restaurants in their Make it Nice group, including NoMad, New York. During the pandemic, Humm turned Eleven Madison Park into a community kitchen to feed those in need as part of his work with his ReThink Food group, a non-profit he founded to work towards a fairer and more sustainable food system. The restaurant also set up meal kits for delivery. It proved a period of self-reflection for Humm who, upon raising the shutters of Eleven Madison Park, announced that he would reopen with a radically different plant-based menu. Humm, a vegan, decided to stop serving animal products in his restaurant due to issues related to climate change, overfishing, and food system sustainability. The decision sent shockwaves through the world of fine dining, but in the end, Humm's vision was vindicated as Eleven Madison Park became the first plant-based restaurant in the world to be awarded and retain three Michelin stars.
Recipes and dishes
Humm's cooking is highly refined and sophisticated and yet has a playfulness that allows it to be truly creative. The chef is especially known for his exceptional plating which elevates his dishes to high art. His dedication to plant-based cooking leads him to assimilate and utilize techniques from classic French and Japanese cuisines. Dishes such as his cucumber with melon and smoked daikon, and zucchini with lemongrass and marinated tofu allow Humm to showcase both the range of his cooking skills and the quality of the produce.
Humm is the co-author and author of five books: Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook; I Love New York: Ingredients and Recipes; The NoMad Cookbook; Eleven Madison Park: The Next Chapter; and Eat More Plants. A Chef’s Journal. Humm lives in New York and is a lifelong patron of the arts, supporting local and established artists through Eleven Madison Park collaborations and other initiatives, such as his continuing work with ReThink Food.
