The Rich Roll Podcast - Daniel Humm: How The World's Greatest Chef Found Purpose (In Plants)

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

What happens when one of—if not the—greatest restaurants in the world suddenly goes 100% plant-based? For perspective, out of the 132 three-star Michelin star restaurants around the world, not a single one is vegan. Suffice it to say, most would say such a move is tantamount to financial suicide. But Chef Daniel Humm—the world-renown chef and owner of Eleven Madison Park—sees it as the greatest purpose-driven, creative challenge of his lifetime. Like most restaurants, when the pandemic hit Eleven Madison Park closed its doors and grappled with bankruptcy. But it was during this time that Daniel started thinking more deeply about purpose. What he stands for. How he could leverage his talent and resources to meaningfully participate in solutions to food insecurity and the inherently unsustainable nature of food systems more broadly. Bold leaps followed. He converted the EMP kitchen into a commissary to provide free meals to food-insecure New Yorkers. He kitted out a food truck to distribute those meals. He partnered with Rethink Food, a non-profit committed to creating sustainable and equitable food systems, to work on solving food inequality at scale. But his coup de grace involved re-opening the most revered restaurant in the world with a completely plant-based menu—and ensuring that every EMP meal enjoyed pays for five meals freely distributed to those in need. It’s a move that sent shockwaves throughout the food world. But Daniel’s bet is more than paying off, denoted by a waitlist that currently exceeds 15,000 people. On the very day Eleven Madison Park announced its new menu, I committed to making this podcast happen. My friend, past podcast guest, and former Esquire magazine Food & Drinks editor Jeff Gordinier connected the dots. In turn, Daniel agreed to do the show. But there was a condition: first I must dine at EMP. Deal. I immediately booked a flight to NYC. I joined Jeff for said dinner—an exquisite experience like no other—and the day following convened with Daniel for this exchange. This conversation is about why cuisine at the highest level—food as art—plays a vital role in moving culture forward. It’s about what makes a great chef. What pursuing a passion truly entails. And the magic of embracing constant reinvention. It’s also about the role that art, minimalism and essentialism have played in the evolution of Daniel’s craft and life philosophy. But more than anything, this is a deeply personal tale of evolution. It’s about the search for purpose beyond accolades—and what it means to devote your talents in service of a better world. Special Thanks to Daniel’s team for arranging this dining & podcasting experience and to Joseph Hazan at Newsstand Studio in Rockefeller Center for allowing us to record in his facility. Also, gratitude to photographers Sebastian Nevols (kitchen portrait) and Craig McDean (black & white portraits) for permitting use of their images. Now one of the most important and influential figures in the plant-based movement, it was a privilege to experience Daniel’s talents and company. And it’s an honor to share this fascinating exchange with you today. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll615 YouTube: bit.ly/danielhumm615 My hope is that his words inspire you to deeply rethink your personal capabilities—and to see that the answers you seek lie within. Peace + Plants, Rich

I moved to America when I was 25 and I just left everything behind and I came with two suitcases and I barely spoke the language. But it is such a liberating feeling to know that everything you need is inside of you. You don't need anything else. And I mean, only COVID could have given me this experience again so late in life at 44 years old, where I was literally sitting in my apartment a year ago, not knowing if I'm going to have a restaurant, not knowing how to pay for the bills for the business and coming to terms with the idea I might lose it all and it's okay. And when you get to that place, and I hope I don't need to get physically to that place again, but I hope mentally I can get myself into that space for many, many years to come because in that space, you're very free and you're able to make pretty bold moves without fear. That's Daniel Hoom, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast.

Okay, so what happens when one of, if not the, greatest restaurants in the world suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, goes 100% plant-based? Well, for perspective and context, of the 132 three-star Michelin restaurants around the world, not a single one is vegan. So with that, most would say such a move is tantamount to financial suicide. But Daniel Hume, the world-renowned chef and owner of Eleven Madison Park sees it differently. He sees it as purpose-driven, mission-based, and the greatest creative challenge of his lifetime. A native of Switzerland, a former pro cyclist, and a 251 marathoner, Daniel started cooking at 14, preparing exquisite meals in some of the finest Swiss hotels and restaurants, before earning his first Michelin star at the age of 24. In 2003, he moved to the US

to become the executive chef at Campton Place in San Francisco, where he received four stars from the San Francisco Chronicle. Three years later, recruited by Danny Meyer, Daniel moves to New York and becomes the executive chef at 11 Madison Park. And he revitalizes this restaurant so completely

that in 2017, it was named number one on the coveted list of the world's 50 best restaurants. That's all amazing, of course, but the story really gets interesting when the pandemic hits. Like most restaurants, Eleven Madison Park closed its doors. They did that for almost a year and teetered on bankruptcy. But it was during this time that Daniel, like many of us, started thinking more deeply about things like purpose,

what he stands for, and how he could leverage this talent of his and the resources at his disposal to more meaningfully participate in solutions to things like food insecurity, the ills of animal agriculture, and more broadly, the inherent unsustainable nature of food systems. In a moment of clarity, he decides to make this crazy bold change first by converting his kitchen into a commissary and kitting out a food truck to provide free meals to food insecure New Yorkers. He partners with this organization, this nonprofit called Rethink Food,

which is committed to creating sustainable and equitable food system solutions at scale. And finally, upon EMP's recent reopening, turns the most revered restaurant in the world plant-based. A restaurant where every meal enjoyed pays for five meals freely provided to those in need. And that decision, when announced, was like this bombshell sending the food world into a frenzy. But Daniel's bet is paying off within hours of the announcement. 11 Madison Park booked a full month of reservations. And today, just five weeks later, the wait list exceeds 15,000 people. Brevity is not the soul of my

wit today. I've got much more to say about the amazing conversation to come, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem,

a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders,

gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery.

To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Daniel. So this is what went down. The day that 11 Madison Park announced its new menu, which was covered extensively in the media, I knew I immediately wanted to get Daniel on the show as soon as possible because my newsfeed was blowing up with people commenting about this incredible story. And my friend, past podcast guest, former food and drinks editor for Esquire, Jeff Gordoneer, who had profiled Daniel

for Esquire and the New York Times, connected us. Daniel agreed to do the show, but he made that agreement on one condition, that I first dine at 11 Madison Park. And I'm not one to say no to that. So I immediately booked my flight to New York City. I joined Jeff for said dinner, which was, I don't even know how to describe it.

It was exquisite. It was divine. It was like this performance art, unlike anything I had previously experienced, a admittedly rare privilege. And the following day I sat down with Daniel for the conversation you're about to enjoy. It's a conversation about why food at this level,

food as curated experience, food as art is important. It's about what makes a great chef, a great restaurant great in the first place. And it's about what it really means to pursue a passion. It's also about constant reinvention. But more than anything, this is a conversation about personal evolution, the search for meaning and purpose beyond accolades, and what it means to mature your career and devote your talents into something mission-based in service to a better world. Daniel is remarkable. His story is wildly fascinating.

And I don't feel it's an overstatement to say that he is now one of the most important figures in the plant-based movement. I believe 11 Madison Park because of its stature, because of what this move represents, and because of what Daniel imagined and is now creating, is well poised to forever change the restaurant industry and also how people think about what plant-based cuisine is and can be. It was an honor to experience his talents. It was an honor to spend time with him. And it's an honor to share our exchange with you. Special thanks to Joseph Hazan at Newsstand Studios and Rockefeller Center for allowing us to record in his facility.

And without further ado, please enjoy me in conversation with one of, if not the best chefs in the world, Daniel Hume. All right. We're good to do this. How are you doing? Thanks for doing this today. I'm good. So happy to be here. Yeah. That's very, very sweet of you to say. I am thrilled to be talking to you today. Thank you for making the time and thank you for making room for me at the restaurant last night. Jeff Gordnier and I had an exquisite meal

curated by you and your wonderful staff. It's a memory that I won't soon forget. And it was really quite something. I have so many takeaways from the experience, not the least of which is coming into this realization that you as the chef and like the team leader, of course, the centerpiece of this experience is the food,

but there's so much more that goes into curating this experience. You have to be this gregarious host. You have to be present with all of the patrons, despite whatever chaos is going on in the kitchen. And I noticed an extraordinary equanimity in your disposition as you greeted everybody and spent time with each of the patrons

that had, I'm sure looked forward to this experience. And it really belies the trope of the screaming chef and the chaos and anarchy that we've come to sort of believe to be the rule as opposed to the exception. I know you had your moments in the past with that kind of behavior, but I didn't see any indication of that last night.

No, I think when you lose your cool as a chef, it is a weakness. And I mean, we've all been in this situation. We as chefs have all been in these situations where we lose our cool or where we're in an environment where other people are losing their cool, but it is really a weakness of the organization of the restaurant. And today I think kitchens are far from that and especially ours. I mean, it's pretty well oiled machine and we have so many talented people.

So there's really no need for that kind of behavior. Right. If you have your management structure sorted out and you are being an effective leader, you know, from kind of a military perspective, then there shouldn't be those problems, right? If you're resorting to that kind of behavior, it means there's something broken in that chain of command. That's exactly right. That's exactly. And in fact, it's a shame that there are TV shows, portraying that kind of behavior because it's really not how it is.

It's not. Yeah. No. You used to do a little bit of that though, right? Back in the day. I mean, what is really difficult is when you're a young chef, to get to the top or to be recognized, you have to do it with a lot less resources

than with the people you're competing with. Like today we have, you know, it costs a certain amount to eat at the restaurant. Yeah. You know, people from all over the world wanna work with me. So we have so much going for us, but when you're young and you know, the meal can't be that expensive.

No one knows who you are. So you're working with, you know, just whoever you find. And it's kind of like a smoking mirror kind of situation to rise up the ranks. And so it's just a lot of pressure on the individual who is trying to make it. Sure. I wanna get into the reinvention,

the re-imagination of food, all the exciting developments that are taking place at 11 Madison Park. But before we do that, I think it would be cool to spend a few minutes just talking about the importance of cuisine in general. And just by way of personal background, I'm a pretty simple guy.

I'm a rice and beans and guacamole dude. Like I eat popper food. I've been plant-based for a long time. My tastes are not that refined. I have had privileged experiences, a couple of eating at fine establishments, yours being certainly one of them. I ate at Noma two years ago with Jeff.

I've eaten at L'Arpège. So I've had those experiences, but I wouldn't consider myself like a gastronomist by any stretch of the imagination. So, and I think it's important to say, like most people in their lives will never have the privilege of dining at your restaurant or a similar analogous type situation.

So why is cuisine at this level important? Like how do you think about food as art at the highest level and the impact that that has and the meaning that that carries throughout culture? Well, I think it's an art form. I've always cooked in those restaurants from the beginning of my career. I worked in these Michelin star restaurants.

And for me, the way I've experienced it was as a performance and as an art form. And it's very much tied to culture, culture of the place. Like when you're working in a restaurant in France or in Italy or in South America, those experiences are very much different. They're very much tied to the place

and they're making references to the culture. And of course, I grew up in Switzerland and fine dining for us was coming out of France, which is maybe even the birthplace of that kind of dining. I think there's a beautiful culture tied to it. I think there's a beautiful culture tied to it and it starts from the farmers the artisans who make the ceramics and the silverware and the glassblowing and then it's the people who make the linens

and then of course the team that works the floor and the way they move through the dining room and then of course the chefs and then the recipes they're inspired by that go way back sometimes so I think it's

and I struggled with this many times in my life with the idea of how much it costs to eat at one of those restaurants. Because food is so magical on so many levels and food touches everyone. And to cook for an audience, you know, of the 1%, that can be challenging sometimes. But through the pandemic, somehow I found a whole new meaning in all of it. Like our restaurant shut down March 16th of last year. And all we have left was an empty space.

Farmers with so much food that was going bad and food insecurity that was doubling. And so we transformed 11 Madison Park into a community kitchen. Yeah, so you go from in 2017, the restaurant's rated the number one restaurant in the world on that coveted 50 world's best list.

I'm sure with that, there's pressure to continue what you're doing the way that you're doing it. It's obviously working and it's attracting people from all over the world and you're being lauded for it. And you're getting all this attention. 2020 hits, you're forced to close the restaurant. You're facing bankruptcy. You make some interesting pivots during the pandemic year,

but in 2021, you open as a 100% plant-based restaurant. None of the other of the 132 three-star restaurants are vegan. I mean, that requires immense balls to make such a bold move. But reinvention is really the touchdown of everything that you've done historically throughout, not just your career, but your life.

Like you're constantly pivoting and iterating and challenging yourself to do something fresh and new. I think it's one part for selfish reasons to keep myself interested in it because I don't see myself doing the same thing over and over again. And especially after experiencing the pandemic, I definitely didn't wanna go back

to doing what we did before. Yeah, it seems like it's a bit of a reckoning. I mean, I think in the sort of hoity-toity, high altitude of cuisine at this level, there's a lot of discussion and dialogue about things that are important within that subculture, but actually don't really matter. They're nice, they're ego inflating, et cetera. But the pandemic, my sense is that it really compelled you

to kind of confront your path in a very existential way. And it provided you this opportunity to reimagine and infuse your talent and everything that you do with this extraordinary mission-based level of purpose and intention that can help people beyond the very few who can experience the food at Eleven Madison Park. No, for sure. And in 2017, when we became number one,

it was actually not such a great, it wasn't as great as one would imagine that feeling. It was actually coming with a lot of emptiness. And maybe it has to do that this was a goal that we were chasing for so long, you know, probably for 10 years that number one spot was sort of our carrot that we were chasing. And you've done, you know, marathons and triathlons. And sometimes when you train a lot for an event and then you have the event and you're on such a high,

you can kind of fall into a hole a little bit where you're a little depressed. And I think that's definitely what happened to me after becoming number one. And I was looking for more meaning. I was looking for a higher purpose. And then the pandemic hit and sort of, I realized that my language is food, is cooking.

And actually food is, you know, food is part of everyone's lives, but food is so central to so many problems we're facing on this planet. Food insecurity being one, global warming and farming and so much more. And so I found myself in this spot of having this kind of incredible opportunity

to actually say something through the food, to show a delicious way to cooking with only plants and feeling that that could make a real difference. The precursor to this is this decision to open up 11 Madison Park as a commissary kitchen and start providing meals to the food insecure, right? And doing that in partnership with Rethink, which was founded by one of your former cooks, right?

So walk me through that chapter. Yeah, so one of our cooks, three years before the pandemic who worked with us, he said, hey, I see you're having all these leftovers or these parts of like, you know, we're only using the top part of a broccoli and the stem we don't use. And that is true to so many other ingredients.

And he said, what if I would take all these ingredients and if I would have a little commissary kitchen and I would make meals out of these ingredients and if I would have a little commissary kitchen and I would make meals out of these ingredients for people in need, would you be able to support me? So we founded together this organization called Rethink Food that was relying on restaurants supplying them with their leftovers. And we did that and that was, you know, it was successful, but it was limited of how many meals we could really do. But then the pandemic hit and obviously all the restaurants closed. And so the supply to our commissary kitchens to prepare these meals also stopped.

to our commissary kitchens to prepare these meals also stopped. And I just found myself in this position where I had this organization, Rethink, where I had an empty kitchen, a massive professional empty kitchen, where I knew a lot of cooks without jobs and where I knew all the farmers and producers sitting on food that they're not selling anymore now. And so we realized that we had to change what Rethink was.

And we sort of started this program called Rethink Certified. And we allowed other restaurants, any restaurant, to use their kitchen and their staff and their farmers to produce these meals. And we as Rethink organization are buying these meals from the restaurants. So actually restaurants were able to keep people employed, farmers were able to keep supplying foods and people were getting fat. Right.

So that was a really pivotal moment, changed the Rethink organization, but also changed my belief of cooking for the 1%. Yeah. Because cooking for the 1% allowed me to have this voice to be able to raise the funds we needed, to be able to get other people on board. And so I promised myself that if I would reopen 11 Madison Park,

it would have to have a higher purpose. So today with every guest that comes to our restaurant, we feed five people forward. We actually started a food truck, the 11 Madison Truck, in partnership with Rethink, where we have 100 guests a night. We give 500 meals per day away for free in communities of need. per day away for free in communities of need. We cook the food in our own restaurant, our staff that also cooks the fancy meals. And then our dining room crew that serves our guests in the restaurant also go out into these neighborhoods and delivering these meals.

So it's sort of like a circular economy. Right, right, right. sort of like a circular economy. Right, right, right. The problem of food insecurity and the problem of food waste dovetail because the solution to one, to the former, can be found in the latter in so many ways. And we are in this extraordinary predicament

where more than 50 million people lack reliable access to nutritious meals. 70 tons of good food goes underutilized every year. If you talk to Paul Hawken, who wrote Drawdown, he will tell you that food waste is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Solving this problem in your local community is one thing, scaling it in order to address the larger national

and sort of international issues that relate to this is another thing. But I think what's interesting about trying to solve this problem, grappling with the solution, orients itself around communication and distribution. It's not, you know, food insecurity isn't by dint of lack of food, it's related to ineffectual distribution of the food that gets wasted in so many restaurants

and homes every single day, right? But to go to a busy chef or a busy restaurant and layer on top of their impossible schedule, the idea that they have to prepare meals or set aside, you know, it's like you're creating a situation that's probably not gonna work, right? So what I understand about Rethink is training chefs and restaurants

and creating systems through technology and effective communication tools that allow it to be seamless. So it doesn't create a burden on these restaurants. It just becomes part of how they operate. Is that fair? No, I mean, what you're saying is absolutely accurate. It's about communication.

And there is enough food for everyone. And that's what's so heartbreaking. It is actually a problem we can solve. There is actually enough food. we can solve, there is actually enough food. And the restaurant business is not the most lucrative business to be in. And actually the goal of Rethink is actually that it's a benefit to the restaurant to get on board

to be a Rethink certified restaurant. Yeah, so talk about that a little bit. It's sort of like lead certification for restaurants. And I think it plays into this idea that, especially amongst younger people, purpose-driven companies, organizations are really crucial in consumers making conscious choices about the companies and the businesses that they choose to patronize. Yeah. For me, really the light bulb went off right as the pandemic started and I decided

that we would start cooking these meals. I went to different soup kitchens around the city to learn as much as I could how they were operating and how meals are packaged and what were the meals consist of and what gets good feedback and whatnot. And I realized that all these soup kitchens were run by volunteers and a lot of them weren't as well organized. They also didn't have the connection that we have to producers and farmers. And so when we started producing these meals, I was shocked how efficient we were. We were able to produce 5,000 meals a day pretty quickly.

That's a lot of meals. We were efficient in time. We were efficient at price too. You know, we were told that a meal is probably $5 per meal. And within a week, our meals were like around $2. So then I realized that every restaurant produces waste as well, like you said. And I realized that the chefs and the restaurant have a responsibility and are in the center of this conversation.

Because we're talking to farms every day, we're producing waste every day, we have talented cooks, talented team members. So the efficiencies in a restaurant are far greater than in commissary kitchens. And then restaurants also struggle often to pay, you know, their rent and their staff and so forth. And so if the organization is already paying soup kitchens,

they might as well pay restaurants. So there's actually a great benefit. Yeah, it gives them a base level of predictability in their income that can create almost like a universal basic income for restaurants, right? As long as they're providing this service, they know they can pay a certain percentage of their bills and keep the lights on,

regardless of how many people show up every day. Yeah, that was exactly the idea. You know, it helps for pay for the rent. It's a consistent income. No one knows better than chefs how to cook delicious, inexpensive meals. Yeah. You were sharing last night a little bit about the impact

of visiting these various neighborhoods around New York City and really being boots on the ground and developing a greater appreciation and understanding for how most people struggle every single day to get access to nutritious food. So talk a little bit about that experience. Yeah, I mean, it's shocking and it's unacceptable that in a city like New York City,

that kind of poverty and not accessibility to food is a reality. I mean, yesterday I went to visit the Queensbridge Housing Project because I'm really interested in, you know, me as Eleven Madison Park, we can't change the entire world, but we got to start somewhere.

So I'm really trying to figure out where would it be the most meaningful so i've been visiting different community centers uh different community leaders i mean the one thing that that is so incredible you know and there are so many bad neighborhoods in new york and all over the. But even as bad as they are, there are always these angels, these incredible people who are doing good, who are helping others.

And sometimes you wonder, wow, where do they take this energy from? But it's just so beautiful. And that has been consistent in wherever I have visited. And yesterday in Queensbridge, I mean, this is a six block radius, you know, square that has 69 apartment buildings that houses, you know, 12,000 people. And, you know, there's one little grocery store where the fresh food section is one little corner.

I mean, just unbelievable. There is no access to fresh food and it's 20 minutes from here. We're in downtown Manhattan. Yeah. Yeah. So the solution rests in, I mean, you can deliver meals,

you can deliver food to these communities, but that's akin to a bandaid in the sense that rather than teaching them how to fish, you're providing a fish, right? So the long-term solution rests in empowering these remarkable people in the communities, these catalysts, these lightning rods for change, and providing them with the access

and the tools that they require to empower their own neighborhoods, right? And so much of that I think can begin with teaching people how to grow their own food and leveraging all of the rooftops across Manhattan and other urban areas across the country and the world to basically connect more deeply with the nutritious foods that they so desperately need. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And that's what we're learning as well.

You know, having this food truck in these neighborhoods, it is just like an antenna to gather information. And it is, although every meal really matters and people really rely on it, it is a band-aid. And the problems obviously go much deeper. So we're really trying to figure out next steps. And one thing that we're in the process of is, there's all this, you know, in next to Queensbridge Housing Project, there are all this, you know, in next to a Queensbridge housing project,

there are all these buildings with empty roofs. And so we actually secured a four acre rooftop space where we are in the process of building a rooftop farm and hopefully, you know, create a farmer's market for, you know, the housing projects where people can use their food stamps and prices are reasonable and then also have an educational program. What's so beautiful about our industry, the restaurant industry, is that this is a great place for people to come to who didn't finish their schooling or need a second chance or even coming from a broken home.

The restaurant industry really allows for people to excel if they bring passion to the work on a daily basis. And it's one of the few apprenticeship type career paths that still exists. You're right. It's a beautiful industry. And many of us need it. You know, I didn't finish high school.

You quit school at 14. We're gonna get into that. Like left home at 15, it's bananas, right? And look at you. So there are many of us who found sort of a home and family in a way too in our industry. So I'm very hopeful that we can attract some talent from some of these neighborhoods. Also, our industry is not the most diverse, which is an issue. And I'm also very much thinking about that.

And it's like, why is that? Because it doesn't actually make sense at all. Let's talk about the pivot to taking 11 Madison Park plant-based. It's one thing to do rethink and deliver all these meals and be part of the solution of addressing food insecurity. How does that relate to this basically maverick in the food world decision to drastically alter your menu and go 100% plant-based? Yeah, I think the pandemic definitely gave us all time to kind of take a step back and think about everything,

rethink everything. And I sort of thought about what was really important to me and what were the things that got me to this place and what got Eleven Madison Park to this place. And one of my main inspirations is Miles Davis, who has been an inspiration for over 15 years. And it kind of happened by accident, but it was in an early review.

Right, a review said more Miles Davis and you had to figure out what that meant. So we came up with a list of 11 words that were most commonly used to describe him among the words, cool, endless reinvention, forward moving, light, innovative, and so forth. Is that the plaque that's in the kitchen that I saw last night? Exactly.

Exactly. I was wondering where those words derive from. And they became kind of our mission statements. And two of those words, endless reinvention and forward moving and just thinking about Miles. And he has been such a deep inspiration and it's been part of the success of the restaurant. So what does this mean today?

Endless reinvention and forward moving obviously means we have to change. Right, it's like Dylan going electric. Yeah, or Miles going electric when he did bitches brew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if I'm considered an expert in food, if I'm truly at the forefront of dining and if Eleven Madison Park is truly like one of the best restaurants in the world, you know that as a chef, I've been cooking for 35 years. I've seen products disappear. I've seen the quality of products change you know and some of the luxurious products even more so and you know we are a

luxury brand that's just what it is when I think about caviar for example and I think about that we are still celebrating that as a luxurious product, that is an old idea because caviar isn't wild anymore. Caviar is not rare. It's plentiful. You can find it everywhere. You can buy caviar at the airport and it doesn't even taste that good anymore. It's all farm raised now, right? It's all farm raised. And we're still holding on to this idea that this is one of the most luxurious product. That idea is broken. And so if I'm that expert and I'm continued, and I've been guilty for it as well, because we've still celebrated caviar when we already knew this, but coming out of the pandemic.

And I think part of the issue is that this is not just some artistic endeavor. This is our lives. This is how we make our money and we need guests. And so 11 Madison Park is selling an experience. It's actually quite unique to other restaurants. And during the pandemic, I think that became clear to me that what we're actually selling is not the food that's on the plate. It's actually more like a Broadway show ticket. And so we have the unique opportunity to change people's ideas and thoughts and what they think luxury is.

And I think my ambition was to create a meal that was as magical, as luxurious, as delicious as a meal was before, but without using any animal products. And if we could do this, then maybe in a few years, a restaurant can charge more for a carrot main course, or which today, you know, you still have to deal with the cost of the staff and the cost of the rent.

And if you can only charge $20 for a main course because it's only plant-based, it's difficult. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, I mean, a couple of reflections on that. First of all, change requires change at the top and change at the bottom. In other words, you need grassroots, groundswell, populist change, boots on the ground,

but you also have to, at the highest level, set the tone for the rest of the culture. And you being in this privileged position where the decisions that you make and the menu that you arrive upon has influence and impact across the food world and then trickles down into culture. Like the power of that is huge to shift mindsets, change perceptions and create new trends. If he can do this and be so successful, I know when

you made the announcement and, you know, there was the food world just exploded with a million hot takes on whether this was a good idea or not. But here we are, you're only like a month into the reopening and you've got a wait list of 15,000 people. I mean, the people have spoken. This is something people are very interested in. It's successful. And what does that mean in terms of how people

are rethinking for themselves, what great food can be and how we can tie great food to meaning and purpose in our own lives to forge the future of our imagination for the generations to come. And that's a beautiful thing. And at the same time, secondly, this idea of creating an experience, you know, I experienced it last night.

It's unbelievable. Like everybody knows your name. The minute you walk in, Jeff had an umbrella, the umbrella was taken. There's no claim check, you know? And then when we left, they remembered to get it. And Jeff was telling me stories about the dream weavers and the magicians and all these iterations

of the restaurant over the years. I mean, you used to have a couple people kind of wandering anonymously, the floor semi eavesdropping on people. And when somebody would say, oh, wouldn't it be great if we have this, or it's a bummer that our tropical vacation got canceled, that suddenly you would materialize this experience

for people like magic, which is unbelievable to create that kind of experience for your guests. Yeah, it's a really special place and it has gone through a lot of different iterations and it has constantly evolved and moved forward. But it was always very much about the guests creating these magical moments for the guests. now I think you know used to at some point the menu was all about New York and about all the artisans of New York and the products of New York and of course many other

chefs have championed being local but I think today local isn't enough anymore. And so we need to know, we need to show a delicious way, a luxurious way in a different way. I compared a little bit to, you know, when you look at the car industry and you see when Toyota Prius came out with the hybrid car, I think it's more than 20 years ago, that was such a groundbreaking and incredible move and idea. But it wasn't the most sexy car.

And that's why it didn't really get the big traction at that time. And it was really when Tesla started making luxurious electric cars that now the entire car industry is transitioning. And that's from the top down. If Elon had introduced the first Tesla as an economy vehicle, I'm not sure it would have worked. His first car was like a $250,000 roadster. And they only produced a few. So the idea being create an aspirational brand. You come out with the luxury product first,

over time with scale, you can create products that consumers can get more accessibly. Yeah, I think that's exactly, that was my thought a little bit that that could have a massive, massive, massive impact. Because we are going there actually. Right.

This isn't- So talk about that. I mean, we still haven't gotten down to the nitty gritty of like why a hundred percent plant-based? Couldn't you have a little fish? Why don't you know, why is there a little bit of meat? Like, why are you so ardently doing this in this rigorous way?

As somebody who's been plant-based for 15 years, I get it. I'm just interested in like, how you think about that for yourself. Well, for us, it was just exciting. One part, it was exciting to challenge ourselves to that kind of level. Like in the beginning, it seemed so daunting to let go of all these ingredients that we worked with

for so many years and even ingredients that made our restaurant famous. I mean, we perfected cooking the lobster and the duck. Yeah, like very rich food. Yeah, mostly rich food. But what I've learned is that by letting go of these things, today I feel so liberated in a way that I never thought was possible. As a chef, I'm more excited than I've ever been. And I feel my palette of ingredients has only grown. Because before, in a way, we were stuck with these things.

You had to have lobster. You had to have the duck. You had to have a foie gras. And today we're rewriting an entire new language. It's not clear what the main course is gonna be or the appetizer. It's like the range of ingredients. Yeah, it's creatively inspired.

I think there is something to this idea of constraints driving innovation in the way that if an artist is restricted in their color palette or a movie director is suddenly facing budget cuts. Oh, we don't have 65 days to shoot this movie. We only have 28 and we're not gonna be able to get this or that.

And you're forced within those constraints to come up with solutions. And so often those solutions end up pushing the art forward in ways that wouldn't have been possible without those constraints. So there is something about those boundaries, I think that really force you to dig deeper into your talent and come up with something new.

And that's how we move culture forward. Yes. I mean, we're not anti-meat, but we are pro-planet. I think that's one thing. And if we can prove a way that you can be completely without, like, for example, we feel like we've been working in food our whole lives and we're very creative with it. And where we apply our creativity,

we want to prove a way to do it without animal products. If someone orders a cappuccino at the end of their meal, we're not gonna lecture you what kind of milk you should drink. We'll have plenty of plant-based milks, but we'll also have the cow milk because we're not the food police. You're breaking my heart.

I know, I'm sorry. You made the most unreal sunflower butter last night and those rolls were extraordinary. I can't believe there wasn't dairy in those. I have to imagine that you could innovate in the plant-based milk space to come up with something that would soothe the palate and disabuse people of this idea that it has to be dairy in their cappuccino.

We're definitely working on all those kinds of things, but we wanna lift people up to come because most of our guests are not plant-based eaters. It's not a vegan restaurant for vegans. All the fancy vegan people are gonna come. I know they have been coming, but that's not really the intention here. The intention is to change people's ideas

of what it could be. And then people will look, they will eventually make their own decisions that they don't want cow's milk in their cappuccino. Has anybody come to the restaurant who was not aware that you'd made this switch to plant-based and had some kind of problem made this switch to plant-based and had some kind of problem

as a difficult one percenter could be? No, actually, we've been so blessed with so many excited guests. I mean, it's been, and in a way, it's almost like, wow, really? Like everyone is liking it? Because sometimes when you push creativity, I'm sure as you know

uh to to a really great place it's not universal sure liked um but somehow this experience somehow this has hit a nerve um that was very timely and and people are really responding extremely positively to this experience. And even the people who come in with a lot of doubts, we definitely had some people who made the reservation before COVID and have paid before COVID and we're honoring their reservation now. But it's obviously a very different restaurant. we're honoring the reservation now, but it's obviously a very different restaurant. And some of those come in with a lot of reservations, but I feel like people are really living with excitement. It's so cool, man. Here's my theory.

Let me know what you think about this. I think that you are on this spiritual journey towards self-actualization and deeper kind of integration within yourself. Like you realize that you possess a certain level of talent, a certain level of power, and the pandemic has forced you to try to find deeper meaning in that.

And you've come out with this marvelous thing that you're doing right now. And based upon kind of what you shared last night about how you feel like you feel lighter, you feel more directed, you feel more creative. Like there is something to that mystical energy of aligning your gifts with something more meaningful and purposeful

that creates a more authentic being, like a more self integrated individual. And based upon what you were sharing last night, like this is, I see this transpiring in you. And I think it's just, I think you'll continue on this journey. I'm interested to see where it goes, but how do you think about that?

Like, how do you think about it from like a broader, more like mystical perspective? I know you're Swiss, you're very precise and you know, so I don't know what your relationship is with that. I don't know where you're going with this, but I kind of do. You do. The thing is, that's what makes it interesting, being Swiss. It must be confusing for you, right?

You can't calibrate your watch to this. I know, no, you can't. No, I definitely, you know, after reaching the mountaintop of becoming the best restaurant in the world at a pretty young age I definitely ask myself a lot of

questions and I've done a lot of soul searching and I've tried all kinds of things to soul search you know I went to India for two months which which was incredible. And I felt, it was challenging also. I don't know if you've been to India.

I haven't, no, my wife has. It's an incredible place and a challenging place and you feel completely out of your comfort zone, but it's extremely spiritual as well. And I've done a few psychedelic journeys as well. And, you know, just searching for more meaning and for a fuller version of myself. And I think, and I hope it's just gonna keep growing.

But today the work is definitely the most meaningful. And it feels like so many parts of my life have led to this very moment. Yeah, you told me last night that you're almost quick to say that you're not vegan yourself, despite what you're doing in the restaurant. And I think I said something like, well, if you can dispense with that disconnect,

like if you can align your personal lifestyle with what you're doing professionally, I think you'll see an even greater kind of growth or kind of celebration of what you're doing. But I think you'll also feel more integrated and purpose celebration of what you're doing, but I think you'll also feel more integrated and purposeful in what you're doing. I think you're probably right. But the way I've always kind of led my life

is more out of intuition rather than so much about what I'm thinking. I should do more of my gut feeling. And I think this has all come from that place that I just felt like this is the right thing to do. And I think my life just needs to catch up on. That's what I think. I think it's inevitable.

It's happening. That instinct, that intuition will evolve as well. It's absolutely happening. I mean, even, you know, it would be strange for me at this point to eat a plate of meat. I haven't done it. And it's almost the body is telling me, you know,

the body's telling you what's actually good for you. Yeah, well, what happens is as you continue to evolve and grow, those things become less appealing and they just fall away effortlessly as opposed to like, okay, now I'm gonna try really hard to do this thing. It just becomes incompatible with the way that you're living. Yeah, no, and it's,

I do believe into talking things into existence. When I have some big ideas, I just start talking about, even before I even fully comprehend what that means. I mean, to a band- It makes them real. It does make them real, but also, you know, it's a really scary thing. Change is scary for a lot of people.

And I'm not in a, you know, I'm in a team sport. Like there is a whole army to make this happen every day. And it's not just what's in my head, but it's like, I need to get everyone else on board. Right. Like what happened when you told your investors or like, this is what I'm going to do. No, here's- How does that go? I told your investors or like, this is what I'm gonna do.

No, here is- How's that go? No, there is, so our building, we have a lease in our building and it's owned by two different landlords. I think when they bought the building a few years ago, it's like a billion dollar building or something like that. And they're 50-50 partners. And one of the partners reached out to the other partner when they heard about my decision and they said,

"'Well, do we have any say in this "'as the landlord of the building?' I mean, it was hard. Obviously they don't, but people really, it is hard for people to deal with change. And our team as well. I mean, it was hard for our team to deal with this. Yeah, it's a big deal.

Scary, it's scary. Well, you don't get to this point, sitting atop the pinnacle of cuisine in the manner that you do without being competitive, like behind your very charming disposition, like there's gotta be a killer in there, right? Like, and you're somebody who was a very good athlete. Like I'm interested, let's go back.

Cause the origin story is crazy with you. Growing up in a household where you had a challenging, difficult relationship with your dad, your mom introducing you to food at a young age, but walk me through what it was like growing up in Switzerland as a kid. Yeah, I grew up to, as the youngest child, to my parents who were very young at that time.

My dad was going to architecture school, you know, super detail-oriented, but tough, tough, difficult dad, and nothing was ever good enough. And, you know, it was hard. And I think to the point where you said earlier, like when there's yelling in the kitchen, you know, there was yelling at home sometimes. And it was also because it was just, everything was overwhelming.

I mean, my dad was like, you know, 21 years old and there I was born and he was also going to architecture school. And, you know, I think it was, it's difficult. And it was, I started biking a lot. But at first I- You were a runner first, right? First I ran and sport for me was sort of the outlet.

I mean, the more time I could be out of the house, the happier I was. I didn't really love school that much, but I started running and I started running even as a young kid, like for miles and miles and miles. And I competed in cross country and that gave me the opportunity to travel around which was

really exciting when you're like 10 11 12 years old um and uh you know i was running i won the nationals two years in a row and at a very young age as a junior um but then and then even running wasn't even got me far enough so then i started biking because then I could even travel, you know. But your dad wasn't giving you the love on the running? No love on the running. No love. No love on the running. You know, when, you know, I could come in first and his response would be, well, the best guys were injured or something like that.

The guys who would have won were injured. It was never really, the wins weren't really ever celebrated. It was hard. It's hard. It's hard. It is interesting that, I didn't have that specific experience,

but I did grow up underneath a dad who set very high expectations for me that I couldn't ever seem to quite satisfy. And I've had to do a lot of work around that to make peace with it. And I love my dad and he did the best he could and he's from a different generation, et cetera. But I think there's something about growing up

with that kind of parenting or experiencing that kind of trauma that implants in you this competitiveness, like this drive to excel because you so desperately wanna be recognized and seen. And I feel myself to this day still, I rely on that as a strength that can also lead me astray. But it is in some respect, like a superpower that rests within me

that was born out of that type of experience. Yeah. Yeah, that would be my dad's response to this. How good, you know, how good. So then you get on a bike and then it's freedom. I'm out of here. I could be gone like all day. Yeah. So I started racing and I started pretty much winning a lot of races early. And so I had the opportunity to leave school at 14 years old to really become a professional cyclist,

to be part of a junior program for a serious team. And for me, it was like a no-brainer. I could leave home and school. It was like... The greatest, right? I wanted to do it. And so, yeah, that was amazing. What did dad think about that?

Oh, it was so tough. He didn't think it was a good idea at all, but somehow I got away with it and I went for it. And I did leave school at 14. So that's the last formal schooling that you had. Yeah, I went to school for eight years of my life. Wow. And mom?

I mean, she was crying when I was leaving home, because my mom, I was very, very close to her and she was sort of like magical and she cooked and spiritual as well. Like she's an artist and for her, it was just heartbreaking for me to leave at that age. for me to leave at that age. But, you know, looking back, it was the best decision. It actually suited me to go down this path. Are they still around now? Yeah. How's it going now?

Well, my mom passed away, unfortunately. Yeah, but my dad is around and, you know, I have an okay relationship. I think I agree. I do love okay relationship. I think I agree. I do love him too. And also he did the best he could. But it's hard to, when you are not supported at that age, it's hard to ever fully come clear with it.

Yeah, it's tough. So you leave home at 15 and that with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's tough. So you leave home at 15. Yeah. And that was it. You're gonna go be a bicycle racer. Yeah, it was amazing. Which you did for many years, right? It was amazing though. I got to see all of Europe and it taught me so, so, so much.

And I would never be the chef today if I didn't have that as a background, as an athlete, you know, like there's so many setbacks and you know, it is so tough and so competitive. And there's this romantic idea around being a cyclist, a professional cyclist, but the reality is so brutal. There is no glory. You're making no money. Yeah. You're living in your Belgium or something

and racing in the middle of the winter and terrible weather and freezing all the time. Eating ramen or whatever, barely making it enough to scrape by and always worried about getting cut from the team. Getting cut from the team, injuries are all the time right crashes injuries it's just um yeah eventually i i had a i had a bad accident i was 22 years old and and um and that kind of put

everything in perspective for me and i'm in a way grateful to that accident because I was in the hospital for weeks and I realized that this isn't going anywhere. I was not on the path to be Lance Armstrong and there were only like two or three guys on that level who actually made a living from it. And that wasn't something that was in the cards for me. And we also know about those times in cycling. So it was just that kind of environment that was very challenging and difficult.

And it actually only worked for a few and not even in the long run. Yeah, I mean, you have these very interesting inflection points throughout your life that are all defined by these 180 pivots that you make from leaving home at 15 and saying, I'm not doing school anymore to having the self-awareness as a young person.

How old were you then? 18 or 21 or something like that? When you had that crash? 21. 21, right? To say, this is not gonna work and I'm gonna completely let it go. That requires a certain level of maturity to do that. It would have been easy to just keep going

and let it play out to its inevitable conclusion. But to say, I'm pulling out of this and I'm gonna go in a completely new direction. I think I'm just blessed. I think that shows up. It's the same thing when you decide to make 11 Madison Park plant-based, like these very hard line in the sand switch-ups. It's so liberating when you do though. And it comes, when I moved to America, I moved to America when I was 25 and I just left, it was kind of the same, similar moment where I just left everything behind and I came with two suitcases and I barely spoke the language. that everything you need is inside of you. You don't need anything else. And I mean, only COVID could have given me this experience,

again, so late in life at 44 years old, where I was literally sitting in my apartment a year ago, not knowing if I'm going to have a restaurant, not knowing how to pay for the bills for the business and coming to terms with the idea I might lose it all. And it's okay. And when you get to that place, and I hope I don't need to get physically to that place, you know, again, but I hope mentally,

I can get myself into that space for many, many years to come because in that space, you're very free and you're able to make pretty bold moves without fear. Right, but you did your work, like you've been doing pushups all along, right? Like you've made these pivots in the past, you've taken these risks,

it's worked out for better or worse each time. So when it comes to, you know, making this big more recent decision that you've made, you already have that life experience of knowing, like this is the only way because this is the way I've always done it. And somehow it always works out, maybe not in the manner in which I imagine

or on the timetable, but short of doing that, you rob yourself of the magic that can transpire by deciding to incur that kind of risk. Yeah, I think it only always works out, not because there is this success that's by your audience, but it's the success that you do what's in your heart. And that's why it works out. Like when you do what's in your heart,

then it's the right decision. It doesn't matter if it's critically successful or not, but if you continue to follow your heart, I believe that gives you freedom and that, you know. Yeah. So in the wake of the bicycle accident at 21, walk me through the introduction to food and that becoming like your path. Well, as you said, as a cyclist,

you don't make a lot of money and I didn't either. And so actually at 15, when I decided to go pursue cycling as a profession, my dad said, okay, you can do this, but you have to move out. I'm not supporting this. And I said, okay, not even fully understanding what that meant, but I had to get a job. So when I was in training or traveling for races, I had to find a job. And the only place I could get a job was in a kitchen at 15 years old.

And I was really lucky that I found a place with a chef that became my mentor. And it wasn't just a job, but he took it on him to teach me. And so- Comes like a father figure. It was like a father figure. And by the time the accident happened,

I've actually already cooked for six years. And my mom was an excellent cook. And even more so, she really put a lot of value on the ingredients. Like we got all of our vegetables from the farm, everything from the farm, like fresh milk every day. She would bake her own breads. We would pick our own salads in the fields.

And so, you know, as a kid, that was annoying, but because so much work to prepare the meal, but it gave me this understanding of what a great ingredient was. So in a way I was set up for it without even knowing, I never thought I would pursue cooking as a career. But when I was in the hospital and I thought about the cycling,

actually didn't like cycling as much anymore. It just became something so different. It became so, so, so competitive. And it wasn't enjoyable. And when I thought about where I found pleasure was when I thought of the moments in the kitchen. And then I thought, well, I should just do that. And if I can't become the best cyclist in the world,

maybe I can become one of the best chefs. Was that a very concrete decision that you made? Like, do you have awareness that you were making that kind of pivot and refocusing all of your intentionality into this? Okay, I was all in on cycling, now I'm going all in on this. Yeah, this happened in one day.

Wow. This was one moment when I made that decision. And then one of my trainers was close to this restaurant that had three stars. It was in the French part of Switzerland. And we ate there once after a race and it was so magical. Like we sat in that kitchen and that was actually the first time I saw cooking on this level.

That was actually, that kind of planted the seed that cooking could be a sport or a career. But we were sitting in the middle of this three Michelin star restaurant. It was called Freddy's Shirode. And they were like 25 chefs working all around us, like similar to what you saw last night at our restaurant, but everyone had perfect starched uniforms

and big tokes, the hats, and they were serving us the most incredible meal and they were working in harmony and it was like watching a ballet. And sort of that planted a seed. And yeah, I was in the hospital and I called my coach and I said, do you remember that dinner we had two years ago? Can you call that guy?

I wanna work there. And he said, what? He's like, well, I don't wanna race anymore. Bearing the lead. And he did it. And he did it and then three months later I had a job. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. And. Wow. And is that the restaurant, what was the restaurant that you were working in when you had the accident on route to the farmer's market at like three in the morning? That was later, right? That was later. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was a few years later. I was working in this little restaurant. That was actually my first place where I was the chef. And I was 25 years old and I would go to the market every morning to Zurich. It was an hour away and this was in a mountain town. And one morning there was so much snow and I was so tired, probably slept four hours.

And I got up at five in the morning to drive to Zurich. And yeah, and the car just went out of control and I was slitting down this hill and I hit a tree and I was super lucky that there was a tree. Right, because short of, you angled the car towards the little twig of a tree, because short of that, you were looking at an Alpine cliff that it would have certainly meant your death. Yeah. It would have killed me. Wow. And then I called the farmer of this place and he came with the tractor and he pulled me out. Right. Like the thing being like, man,

I need to reassess my priorities. Instead, you're like, I gotta get to the farmer's market because the restaurant can't operate unless I get there and get the stuff. Like the level of obsession at that moment in your life, layered on top of which you've got a very complicated personal situation. You had a kid at 18, right?

Like you had an older girlfriend who then left you, which the pain of that forces you to just go all in on career, I won't be hurt, nobody can abandon me, this is the one thing that I can control and just literally becoming obsessed. Yeah, no, that's right. It's not always healthy, but it definitely pushes you. It definitely, yeah, you have to be able to always healthy, but it definitely pushes you.

It definitely, yeah, you know, you have to push yourself to extreme levels to reach the success. And that's what you learn in sports, right? It's not who is the most talented, it's like who can hurt the most actually. Well, especially in cycling. Yeah. Because nothing, there's no sort of self-inflicted

suffering can be experienced like it can be on a bike. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And you learn that, right? But this then gets channeled into this discussion around passion, like we live in a culture. It's like, chase your passion. We should all live passionate lives. And what I love about the way that you think about this is the fact that it's filtered

through the German definition of passion, this idea of Leidenschaft. So explain that, because I think it's really profound. And it's so much of a better way to think about this type of lifestyle. Yeah, no, in German, the word passion is Leidenschaft and Leiden is actually suffering. And Schaft is sort of like enduring, you know, endure suffering or being willing to suffer for something because that's really passion. Otherwise, it's just like a hobby.

But if you're passionate about something, are you willing to suffer for it? Yeah, exactly. And the suffering will inevitably come. It will be visited upon you, as you know, because doing anything well is fucking hard. And if you wanna be at the highest level, prepare yourself.

Like there just aren't that many people who are willing to kind of endure what it's going to take to get to the, you know, the peak, whether it's in cycling or running or being a chef or any other goal or dream that you're chasing. That's just the truth. But it's, you know, it's the journey that is beautiful or being a chef or any other goal or dream that you're chasing. That's just the truth. But it's the journey that is beautiful

and there is suffering, but there's also so many beautiful parts and the moments of suffering make the beautiful moments so much more. You can't have one without the other. That's exactly right. You can't. And even with that,

like when you were talking about reaching number one and you think, oh, I've been vying for this for a decade, and then it gets there and you find it lacking in the satisfaction that you were expecting. And that's always the case, right? Because the value is in the endeavor. It's in the getting there. It's in the journey undertaken.

It's in the hardship and the struggle and the endeavor, it's in the getting there, it's in the journey undertaken, it's in the hardship and the struggle and the suffering, the lightened shaft that is packed into trying to, aspiring to that place. It's not the arrival, the arrival is a footnote. The journey is over kind of when you're right. And then you're there and you're like, now what? Right? Yeah. Like that's a scary place to be.

Yeah. Short of you figuring this out for yourself, like short of COVID kind of compelling this introspection on your level, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened. It was difficult. Like I know COVID has been devastating

and obviously super painful for a lot of people and a lot of loss and it's devastating. But in my case, it's really, I found a lot of positive in it. And before, you know, now, before I was this chef that was named number one at some point. And, you know, the reservations were booked and booked and booked and booked. And I became more of a brand than a person. And so many of my partners wanted to monetize this brand. You know, people saw opportunities to open different concepts, casual concepts, alignment with brands

and all this kind of stuff. And I started completely losing myself. I wasn't even in charge of my own schedule in a way anymore. It was just like, I was this, you know, face of this brand that, you know, that a lot of people were interested in, but I wasn't. And so it was really challenging. And when everything fell apart during COVID, I was really able to cut ties with a lot of organizations, a lot of partners, a lot of projects in a way that I don't know

if it would have been possible otherwise. Your entrepreneurial journey is fascinating as this hybrid of how do you blend art and commerce in a way that is successful. It's a difficult recipe to get correct. You've had all of these successes along the way and all these different kind of incarnations of partnerships from Danny Meyer originally bringing you in

to Eleven Madison Park in the first place. And then you and Will Guidara, is that how you say his last name? Kind of purchasing or Danny selling you the restaurant and then you having this partner and this fruitful partnership with this guy in which you create all of these amazing opportunities, but ultimately your life scales out of control, right? You become a brand, you become a licensing vehicle.

And then to cut ties with all of that and narrow your focus to just literally this one, like let go of the hotels and all the kind of stuff. Just say, I wanna get back to the one thing that I love that gives me creative sustenance is a bold move in and of itself. And now here you are, like you have investors, but essentially you're the proprietor

and sole owner of this restaurant. You've got one in London as well, but to have the kind of sensibility to say, bigger isn't necessarily better. It's moving me away from what I'm actually seeking. Yeah. You know, what's interesting is that all associations, partnerships, in my case, I think, or most of all, were actually needed and beneficial.

And it got me to this point. I mean, it starts with even just in a restaurant when you think about the need for guests. In the beginning, you need to kind of cook the food that guests will want and will pay for. And then only slowly you can kind of come into your own and you can add some creativity to it. I tell you what you like. Yeah.

Right? I mean, a little bit. They don't know what they want. That's my job. But we are still doing it today. I mean, today we're cooking completely plant-based. People don't even want, you know, know that they would like that.

But the meal starts with this, you know, essence of tomato. Right. This simple tea of tomato that is sort of like disarming. And no matter who you are. You're shocking people into, you're giving them the sense like,

this is gonna be unlike what you expect it to be. Like when it's placed down in front of you, there's no explanation of what it is. I thought, oh, this is a tea or we're gonna cleanse our palate and get ready. And then you take one sip and you're like, whoa, I've never had anything like that before. Certainly you taste the tomato,

but clearly it's a distillation of, I don't know how many thousands of tomatoes are compressed to get like that density of flavor into this clear broth. Yes. And inevitably you think, okay, this is gonna be a ride like no other. It's intentionally very simple,

easy to digest and very, very delicious, universal delicious. And so it's then we can take people on a journey. Then they're like, it's kind of like a hug. It's like, it's gonna be a great meal. I trust you. Exactly. And that's with the cooking and that's with partnerships.

Like I've needed certain partners to understand how business works in America. I had no idea. I came from Switzerland. I left school at 14. Do you know? And now I'm running an empire here in New York City. I mean, it really is fucking crazy. You know, I needed these steps, if you will.

But, you know, if you get to the place and proudly I can say, I don't have an investor anymore. And it took, I'm 44 years old. You're the sole owner. Yeah, I could have, this decision to go plant-based, I don't think, I don't know if there's an investor out there who would have said, oh, this is a great idea. We just had COVID, now go plant-based.

I don't know if that investor is out there. That's liberating though. It's liberating. You got landlords and all that, but you know, wow. It's pretty cool. What is in your mind, the distinction between good and great with food? Like there are plenty of good chefs.

What goes into being a great chef for people that aren't steeped in this type of this world, this subculture? Like, how do you think about that? That's a big question. I think, you know, foremost, it's I think cooking is a craft and I think there are amazing, amazing restaurants

where you just go and have an amazing meal with amazing sourced ingredients prepared in a beautiful way. And then in rare cases, it kind of can transcend that. And it can actually add something. I talked about culture earlier, how fine dining is a big part of culture and the language of sorts. Like, you know, we know that there are a lot of different languages, the languages of politics and the languages of art and different kinds of arts. And I think

there's a language of food. And I think chefs through history of time have, when you think of Alice Waters, I don't know, it's in the 70s probably when she really made a big stand on local food that was groundbreaking. And it really changed culture. It changed America. And there's been other chefs in history of time before. So I think very rarely there's someone that comes along

and that really can make that kind of impact. Is it an intangible, like I know it when I taste it or see it or feel it, or are there criteria? Like when you sit down at a restaurant and you're surprised and you're like, this is great. And this is great because X, Y, Z. Like, can it be distilled down into variables that you feel are important ingredients

in making a proclamation that a certain chef or a certain restaurant, you know, stands or sits above its competitors. To me, it's like when it's bigger than the restaurant. To me, there is the craft. And when you're in a restaurant of great craftsmen and great chefs, then you're in the restaurant and you taste it and you see the attention to detail

and the way the flavors are balanced and it's harmonious and all that. And then there are a few restaurants where it's bigger than the restaurant, where it's about something bigger. And that's just the feeling. And that's just when it's like, almost like a Gesamtkunstwerk,

where everything is from the place to the people, to the education of the people, to the plateware, to where it's this one idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk. And then it can really make real big impact that will trickle down to all kinds of industries. Yeah, there's the, you know, hero dreams of sushi type mastery.

And then there's the kind of orchestration of scaling up that mastery to cultivate an extraordinary experience, right? It's interesting. It's something that I think, to kind of pivot back to the mystical a little bit, there's a saying, I was talking to Jeff about this last night.

I'm long time in recovery and there's an adage in Alcoholics Anonymous that you can't transmit something you haven't got. Like you have to carry the vibration within you to be the lighthouse that will attract the energy into your life that you aspire to have, right? You can't fake that.

Like you're either living it and you're being it, or you're a pretender. And increasingly, I think people, their antennae for like what is real and what is authentic has never been more finely honed. Like we can all see bullshit coming a million miles away and we can all identify when something is real or something is different or carrying that vibration

that we wanna be around. And I think the more that you instill that in yourself and in the culture that you create in your kitchen, the more that that will resonate out into the world and attract those kind of people into this mission that you're on of transforming food insecurity. I think that's really well said. And I think so true.

I think authenticity, you feel if it's authentic or not. And I think, the one thing I do believe though, is that if you do not perfect the craft, you will never get- Yeah, it's lost, right? And you can't, there's a lot of people who break rules, but they never took the time to master the craft itself and really understand the rules.

Like you can't paint outside the lines until you really know how to paint, you know, with mastery within the lines. Yeah, that's paint, you know, with mastery within the lines. Yeah. That's why, you know, art is such a great inspiration to me. And, you know, most of my friends are painters or sculptors or dancers. And it is so interesting when you follow, for example, Mondrian. Most people know, for example, Mondrian.

Most people know Mondrian, one of the first abstract painters. But when you look at his early paintings, they weren't abstract at all. They were landscapes and beautiful ones. But then at some point he became Mondrian. Right, it's always amazing to see early works of some of those more modern artists

who are doing radically different things and to realize like, oh, they actually, they can do it the other way. Yeah, that's true. That's makes it brilliant, right? Right, right. Well, art has been so crucial and influential in how you think about food

and just the restaurant experience in general. So talk a little bit about that influence and also how it's kind of informed some of these pivots, specifically going from this very, I wouldn't say sensory overload experience, but kind of a robust sensory experience to trimming things down into a more minimalistic approach. I've heard you talk about minimalism before.

I would characterize it more as essentialism, like getting rid of anything that's not informing the experience or the art that you're trying to share. Yeah, I think that's really good observation. I actually call it elemental, like where everything is there that's needed, but nothing that isn't. Nothing extraneous.

For me, when I was 12 years old, I had my first real experience with art and my parents took me to the Laurent Jury in Paris. And that's where it's the museum where they hold the large Monet water lily paintings. And it's sort of these two oval rooms of just Monet water lilies. And as a 12 year old kid,

you just feel like you're totally wrapped into these paintings. And for the first time I had this experience when I didn't know how I was feeling. Was I happy? Was I sad? It was really bizarre. I was like very emotional. And since then I knew that art was speaking to me

and was really important to me. And I think forever since then, wherever I go, I visit artist studios, I go to museums, I go to galleries, and I read about art. And I think I had another really meaningful experience. And that was probably at the age of like 24, when I saw for the first time i saw lucio fontana these paintings where he it's just a canvas a white canvas and he took a knife and

he just cuts through the canvas and a friend of mine took me to see that show and said hey this is a really important artist and you should really dig in on him. And I didn't really understand that at first. Like what the fuck is this? Exactly. He literally took a knife and slashed the middle of a white canvas. But my friend was very knowledgeable, so I trusted him.

And in the next few weeks, I tried to understand why this painting was so important. And it's exactly to the point that you said, because Fontana was, while a great sculptor, he worked in ceramics, but he could also paint anything. I mean, he was just a really accomplished artist. And at some point he decided that he would just cut the canvas and that's his masterpiece.

And that painting, in fact, changed art forever because with that one slit in the canvas, he questioned everything that sort of was there before. Like, does a canvas need to have a painting? Is art on the canvas? Could the canvas be the art? Could the artwork be behind the canvas? I mean, he questions everything.

Is painting sculpture? Or is the art the conversation around the work itself? Yeah, as well. Yeah. So taking that, like, what do you make of that for yourself? Like, why was that so impactful to you? And how does that get channeled into how you think about food and the experiences that you're providing?

The more I thought about that work was, he changed art forever with a very minimal gesture. And for me, that was just so powerful and so mind blowing. And so this is how I wanted to cook. I wanted to cook very minimal, but say a lot. And I realized that that was a lot harder than it seemed because the gesture has to be so strong and there is nowhere to hide.

And as a young chef, often I had two ingredients on the plate and I was like, that's not a complete dish. No one would think that's great. So then I added things. I said, oh, I need another puree, another ingredient, another texture. And it became more complicated. But at that point, you know,

guests were reacting to this more than they would have with two ingredients on the plate. And it took a long time for me to get to the place where I could have two ingredients on the place. And it probably only happened like four years ago. Right, in the way that, was it Alice Waters who would just say, here's two dates on a plate. That's it. It takes a lot to get there. It takes a certain level of audacity. Confidence.

Yeah. Yeah. But you're not lacking in confidence. Well, thank you. I don't know if that's a compliment. It demands it. Well, thank you. I don't know if that's a compliment. It demands it, you know. But on this, no, I mean, it's, I guess, you know, courage is probably a better word. Like to say, I have, you know,

a strong enough sense of self and what I'm doing that I can put this out there and maybe not be certain, but have some level of confidence that it will be received because it's backed up by this lifetime of experience and this trust that you've engendered over time. Is that accurate? How does that one feel? I just backed myself into a corner.

You know what I'm saying? It takes a long time to be very simple. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that's reflected in the Rita Ackerman painting in the restaurant, right? The chalkboard painting that's very stripped down, that's on one far side of the wall hanging high up. That kind of, to me, symbolizes like,

we can always erase this and start fresh or new. Like nothing is permanent. It's a reminder, like this is a process. Yeah, it's like Picasso said, you know, a painting is never finished, it's only abandoned. Yeah. And I think that's true. That's true of everything. That's true of everything. is never finished, it's only abandoned. Yeah. And I think that's true. That's true of everything.

That's true of everything. Whether you're writing a book or preparing meals. I mean, the difference with cuisine, yes, there's this constant every day you're doing it, it's evolving, it's an organic living, breathing thing, but each meal in and of itself is almost like a Zen mandala because it will be consumed and destroyed. Yeah. What's hard in art. It's impermanent. Yeah, it is impermanent. And, you know, there's an artist called Andy Goldsworthy, which we're very inspired by. And he works in

nature a lot and he makes like sculptures out of icicles and, you know, he builds them and then the sun comes. And they're gone. And they're gone or he ties these leaves together and he lets them run down the river. And it's so beautiful, but it's impermanent. It's hard to, it's beautiful because I think a lot in life, the impermanent things make it magical. But as a creator, it's also difficult because, you know, you had dinner there last night and there's someone else gonna have dinner there tonight.

And we have to recreate that moment over and over and over again. Yeah. Do you think about the kind of mystical aspect of like putting things inside of people's bodies? Like I've created this thing, it carries a certain vibration, a certain vitality. Other people are consuming that and then they're going out into the world,

this sort of diaspora of human beings who are carrying that vibration. I mean, Jeff was talking last night about the first time he ate at the restaurant and as a long time food critic and writer, he's used to going to these restaurants and they kind of just give him a million dishes and he rolls out of there and he feels like shit,

even though the food is wonderful. But in the case of 11 Madison Park with the new menu, feeling like vital and elevated for, he said like a couple of days, even though he's not like, he wouldn't consider himself plant-based. I think he's playing around with that in his idea, but there is something to that idea

of you are providing a certain wavelength of energy and putting it into other people's bodies. And that has like, that activates people and puts them on their own kind of journey of exploration, their own like trajectory of like learning and exploring and growing and evolving. Yeah, I mean, it's humbling to know that, you know, what we're creating,

people are eating ingestion. And I think it's really interesting even beyond our knowledge of what's actually happening during this meal. Like it's a fully plant-based meal, but we're working a lot more with different cultures. And actually, when we talk about removing a lot of ingredients of animals, the one ingredient that came up a lot was the ingredient of time.

Like the time it takes to ferment something or we're working on all kinds of different fermentations of sauces and shoyus and you get like a soy sauce is like gives you an idea, but there are so many. It's endless. It's endless what you can do, not from soy, but from so many other things. And when we removed meat,

we felt like we wanted to still have a meal that is balanced of like where there are some dishes are more light. Some dishes are more, I'm going to use the word meaty, but richer. And so umami is definitely very central in this cooking. We also worked with these Buddhist monks who are cooking a cuisine called Shojin. And we learned about the ingredient of time. We learned about using different cultures

in different dishes, like cultures, like from, yeah, different, we're working with a lab called Kindom Culture, they have a library of cultures from around the world, from like sauerkraut or kimchi or- Cultures, you mean not populations of people, you mean literal, like biological cultures, right, for fermentation. Biological, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think it affects people. I think during a meal, eating these biological cultures is affecting people almost to a place where people feel euphoric in a beautiful way. And I think that's what Jeff is sort of talking about. And we don't even fully understand. I think Michael Pollan said that, we know the body so well,

many parts of the body we know so well, but actually what's happening in our gut, our knowledge is so limited. It's like, so I think there's a lot of work that's still gonna happen. Yeah, it is this amazing amalgam of all these different influences and cultures. You mentioned the Japanese tradition,

Buddhist temple food, ideas from India, China, nouvelle cuisine from France in the 70s, Boulay, Patterson, Pissard, like all of these influences being kind of hybridized and uniquely kind of through your unique perspective, creating something new out of all of that. The host last night was sharing about the grinding of the sesame seeds every day

and how that's almost become, it's like a team activity, right? But it's almost like a group meditation that begins every day with this laborious process. Oh, it's amazing. These things down. Yeah, and like, how about like the people that have to chop the cucumber and the daikon for that one dish?

They spend all day just doing that, right? For that one dish. Yeah, it's extremely labor intensive. But there's something about that that's beautiful. It's like so much heart is required to do that. When you take it in, there is some, I think there is something intangible about like that that is impactful.

One of the Buddhist monks who was with us for this last year in New York, his name is Toshio. And he said, he thinks that we should have the guests also grind sesame before their meal. You should, yes, yes. Here, this is gonna cost you an arm and a leg. Now go in the back room, because you can't appreciate,

how could you possibly truly appreciate what has gone into this unless you're actually doing some part of it, right? But you know, I mean, it's a wild idea, but when you, But, you know, I mean, it's a wild idea, but when you, the sesame grinding is central to the cooking, the Zen Buddhist cooking. And you literally sit on a floor on your knee for an hour and you're with this wooden paddle

and you're grinding the sesame seeds counterclockwise because on this side of the earth everything in nature goes counterclockwise and first of all it's really painful to sit for an hour on your knees like almost unbearable it's unbearable the first few times you do it and then it becomes sort of bearable and then to grind for an hour by hand is hard. And it's this meditation that's all, it's like passion. It's like, you know, you really have to work for it. But then when you're done, you're in a different mindset.

And I think that's his point of having the guests participate in it. Right, that's the palate cleanser. That's the required preparation to put you in the state of mind to receive appropriately. Wow, we gotta wrap this up cause I know you gotta go in a minute here, but I think a good place to kind of close it

is to talk a little bit about the New York of your imagination. Like if you can continue to scale, rethink and you start getting more invested in the communities that require food assistance, like how can this transform this city and set an example for the rest of the country in the world, because basically what happens in New York,

like then percolates out, like New York is the place from which culture emanates in so many ways. And you have this opportunity that you're taking advantage of to lead by example. So how does this, you know, how would you like the world to perceive this and how can people or restaurant tours or chefs or cooks

who are tuning in for this, start being part of this solution as well? Well, I think the one thing to remember is that, you know, sometimes you get, when you hear the numbers of food insecure people in New York or America, the number is so big that you often feel like, wow, I'm not able to make a difference here.

What difference does that make? Like the number of food insecure New Yorkers during the pandemic was 2 million, 2 million people a day. And so we cooked 5,000 meals a day, which is a lot of meals. Just imagine the amount of boxes, trucks, everything, 5,000 compared to 2 million, it's nothing. So on some days I was like, wow,

we're never gonna make a dent into this. But then when you go into these neighborhoods and you're actually giving the meals away, you're realizing that every single drop matters and every meal matters. And so I think- It's not a drop to them. It's not a drop to them.

And I think that's when, if everyone out there does what they can, the smallest thing matters. And in their community, there are amazing organizations all over and they're always looking for help. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there are plenty of other organizations

out there that are doing this kind of work. I just had Maggie Baird on the podcast. She's Billie Eilish's mom. She's got an organization called Support and Feed. She's doing essentially the same thing. Jaden Smith in LA has his I Love You truck. He goes down to Skid Row and he delivers plant-based meals.

But I feel like the power of Rethink is to create these organizational tools to establish efficiencies in communication and distribution so that all of the various people who are doing good work can align in a certain way that can establish the kind of scale required to address the problem in a macro meaningful way. I think using the infrastructure that already exists

is probably the most powerful way we can actually make a difference. And in particular, if we can even make the infrastructure stronger, because there are already funds, a lot of funds going towards food insecurity, but a lot of the systems are so antiquated. Some of these food banks and where the money goes to, it's just so antiquated. So I think that has to be rethought too, where the money flows and using the existing infrastructure that can strengthen it.

Yeah, good, man. Well, I appreciate your time. Thank you. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I could go for two more hours. I know. appreciate your time. Thank you. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I could go for two more hours. I know. I want to talk to you about your daily routine and what your exercise looks like.

I got lots of... So maybe at some point you can indulge me by a part two to this, but I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. No, I really appreciate it. I really appreciate it. What you're doing is meaningful. It's important.

I was personally very impacted by my experience last night. And if there's anything I can do to help you, I am at your service, my friend. Thank you, I really appreciate it, likewise. Once again, I wanna thank Joe at New Stand Studios here at Rockefeller Center for providing the space for us to have this conversation. You can follow them at Rockefeller Center on Instagram

or at Rock Center NYC on Twitter. And until next time, my friend, you gotta get to the restaurant probably, right? I do, so this is starting. Yeah, you're pretty mellow considering like you have to put on this crazy show every night. It's wild, man. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Peace, plants. Peace, yes. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to

everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful.

And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by

Davy Greenberg, graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and AJ Akpodiete. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace.

Plants. Namaste. Thanks for watching!