Daniel Humm’s visual diary of inspirations for Eleven Madison Park’s plant-based menu

This volume is a collection of drawings and handwritten notes by restaurateur and chef Daniel Humm (born 1976), compiled alongside the conversion of his three-Michelin-Star restaurant Eleven Madison Park to a wholly plant-based menu in 2021. Shaped by the seasonality underlying Humm’s cooking, the book is structured into a section each for spring, summer, fall and winter. Humm’s spontaneous, painterly drawings celebrate the bounty of fruits and vegetables that inspire his creations: from familiar favorites such as the carrot and cherry to the more exotic elderflower and matsutake mushroom. On the back of each drawing, Humm includes meditations on his decision to reinvent (and risk) the 25-year legacy of the iconic New York restaurant. The result is a revealing visual diary of a chef dedicated to pro-planet values as the basis of fine dining, and his realization that following the restrictions imposed by tradition had been his greatest limitation.