Eleven Madison Park

“The most valuable thing is, is to, are the people, the team. The value of them having worked together for a long time, that's what makes the best restaurant in the world. Like, I was always saying, like, you know, we can have the most beautiful dining room, an…”

“Yeah, so we're making 3000 meals a day here at 11 Madison, and by this Monday we activated a second kitchen of our fast casual restaurant, and we're Doing 2000 additional meals, so we're producing 5000 meals a day right now.”

“And it's amazing that in this crisis where I had to let go, you know, furloughed 300 people, my closest people, people I've worked with for many, many years, and, ah, just in this difficult time, again, somehow food, ah, was there”

“I don't think the world right now needs to have honey lavender roasted duck delivered in fancy packaging with burgundy wine.”

“Well, really, I got 10 responses out of 300 people, which was quite, you know, that, that was a difficult part.”

“We faced bankruptcy. You know, we had engaged bankruptcy lawyers to understand what that means, what that would look like.”

“It's easier to add things, but if you only have two things on the plate, then everything has to be perfect.”

“A lot of people try to allure you with this very wealthy guy who wants to have this restaurant, and it's sort of like his passion project. These things never, ever, ever work out because people get bored of it. It only works if it makes money.”

“The review came out, and it was a glowing review, and we never had an empty seat since that day.”

“So we decided that our restaurant will be a hundred percent plant-based.”

“So on nights that we thought he would come, we would invite a bunch of people, friends, regular guests. So the restaurant felt full when he came.”

“I think in our partnership also with Will, this is kind of when things started to be where we didn't Always see eye to eye. And I felt like a lot of these opportunities were taking my time away from the things that I really wanted to do. And so I felt that whe…”

“When you're starting to be pulled in a lot of different directions, it's harder to measure your accomplishments, and so in a way, it's less satisfying as a chef when you start having more success, you know, you're doing interviews, and you're talking to guests…”

“We've cooked over one million meals out of the kitchen of 11 Madison Park since March.”

“Like we had so many meetings in those six months where we said, hey, we lost money every month, like huge amounts. I mean, we had nights where we had four guests. In the restaurant.”

“I think hospitality is arguably more important than even the food. I think the food maybe brings the guests to the restaurant, but then the hospitality makes Makes the guest return and return.”

“We definitely saw a dip in, in, in revenue because the audience we're catering to became a lot smaller.”

“Some of our suppliers were upset, and they felt like somehow we are turning our back on them, which of course in a way we did because we stopped ordering certain things”

“We will never revert back to Butter glazes, chicken stock, the demi-glace. It's fundamentally changed, because we have learned, in some ways, to make things even better.”

“If I would have known all the things that I know today, I don't think I would have had the courage To go down this path.”

“In October, we will reintegrate a few animal products, such as fish or shellfish, and yes, we will bring our duck back, our honey lavender glazed duck.”

“I feel like I started to realize that to create real change, we can't be as dogmatic.”

“It's fundamentally different, but we have over 200 people working in a restaurant that serves a hundred people.”

“Our labor costs went up by, like, 20%.”

“There's never been a restaurant. That received three Michelin stars with a plant-based cuisine.”