I am morally superior to you. Yes, I eat meat, but unlike you, I feel bad about it.
My shame is about murdering animals, whereas Daniel Humm, who turned his Michelin three-star Eleven Madison Park vegan in 2021, was worried about climate change. I am also morally superior about climate change. I even own an electric car, the brand of which is irrelevant for this essay.
So when Humm issued a press release today saying he was putting meat back on the menu, I was disappointed.
I am a fan of Humm’s, having watched him cook a six-course dinner in front of my bar seat at some winter-themed German corporate event in 2018 with fellow diners Tyra Banks and Devon Aoki. I couldn’t believe how perfect his scallops were, and even loved his chicken stuffed with foie gras, even though I’m not a huge fan of either ingredient (I think chicken is a waste of murder). I’ve loved Eleven Madison Park even before he got there, having enjoyed a six-hour lunch at my boss’ birthday party that ended with a bunch of teens pointing and laughing at me when they saw me depart a bus on 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue to vomit on my shoes.
Did I go to Eleven Madison Park during its vegan phase? No, because I’m not paying $365 for vegetables. Though, actually, I might have if the reviews had been better—or at least not mentioned that a dish “tastes like Lemon Pledge and smells like a burning joint,” though at least that’s better than the inverse.
I might have gone because, after the thrill of seeing caviar and foie gras heaped on my plate at The French Laundry in the 1990s, I no longer look to a tasting menu for luxury ingredients. I can sous vide a wagyu steak or slather beluga on a blini at home for a lot less. I go for the art—for something new that changes how I think. And “land caviar” made of Japanese lawn seeds or butter made from sunflowers and morels might have done that.
Humm wrote that the lack of meat “kept people out. This is the opposite of what we believe hospitality to be.”
I would counter that a great restaurant selects its customers. Baroo in L.A. keeps out people who aren’t contemplative. Carbone keeps out people who aren’t ballers. At one point, Eleven Madison’s waiters performed a card trick. Most Americans would rather eat vegetables than talk to a magician.
The problem is that, after the Impossible Burger moment, there are no longer vegan customers. Progressives, as you might have noticed, are no longer a thriving bunch. Which is why Humm’s capitulation feels like such a loss. No, adding the lavender honey duck won’t have the same effect as demolishing USAID, but it signals caving to reactionary trends. Would I love to taste that duck? For sure. But I’d rather live in a world where I couldn’t order duck anywhere. Instead, we are shifting toward duck everywhere.
Back in 2021, we were MeTooing and Black Lives Mattering. It was easier for Humm to risk removing meat back then, possibly because he was dating Laurene Powell Jobs, a billionaire vegetarian. Every good vegan man has a woman behind him making him do it.
When I was in high school, I’d sometimes cook with a friend whose parents were immigrants. He could not abide by any recipe, for any meal, that didn’t include meat. I’m sure his parents put that idea in him, not wanting to be reminded of their home country in which people lived much, much longer. It’s a lot of work to erase that instinct—that man dominating beast signals the good life.
Maybe Humm is right to entice people with a little meat and wow them with his veggies. Despite my hatred of meal kits, for the last year I’ve ordered from Purple Carrot, a vegan one, so my family starts thinking about meals differently. It was working pretty well until my wife started making them and adding sausage. When she was younger, she had been a vegetarian for about four years, which seems about average.
I emailed PETA so they could express that sadness in the most disgusting way possible. “Watching the blood pour from a struggling, terrified animal would make most people go vegan, so that it had the opposite effect on Chef Humm is troubling,” wrote PETA President Tracy Reitman, referring to Humm telling The New York Times that he made the decision to reintroduce meat after seeing a shepherd slaughter a goat in Greece. Then she called on people to boycott Eleven Madison Park.
I will not do that. Because I do not blame Humm for his decision. I blame me.
