With fine dining being redefined following the 2020 pandemic, Eleven Madison Park’s Daniel Humm used the hiatus to thoroughly reimagine his crown jewel. Humm to the restaurant’s website to explain that the institution was being taken in a new and plant-based direction, “This way of eating is better for the planet and our health—and it is delicious.”

However, the same Eleven Madison Park restaurant that held a four-star rating with New York Times publication since 2009, suffered a massive fall from grace. AS the publication stopped issuing stars amid the pandemic fallout, NY Times critic Pete Wells’ review made it clear that the restaurant’s four stars would be knocked down to one (if not fewer) were he allowed to.

The review was blistering, with Wells writing, “Almost none of the main ingredients taste quite like themselves in the 10-course, $335 menu.” For instance, beets were “doing things no root vegetable should be asked to do” while few of the offerings were forced to work so hard to “impersonate” meat, “you almost feel sorry for them,” via NBC New York.