Friday. 13.12.2024

New York chef turns Michelin-starred eatery into charity kitchen in Covid-19 crisis

Cooks at his Manhattan eatery, which was named World's Best Restaurant in 2017 by the World's 50 Best Restaurants Academy, are preparing 3,000 meals a day for frontline workers and underprivileged New Yorkers.
Chef and owner Daniel Humm poses for a portrait in the shuttered dining room of Michelin starred restaurant Eleven Madison Park as the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID19) continues in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., May 20, 2020. Picture taken May 20, 2020. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Chef and owner Daniel Humm poses in the shuttered dining room of Michelin starred restaurant Eleven Madison Park. Photo: Reuters/Lucas Jackson.

Chef Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park, who is used to being paid for fine dining with exclusive black credit cards, says his richest reward during the Covid-19 crisis is the grateful smiles of poor New Yorkers fed by the Michelin three-starred restaurant he has turned into a charity kitchen.

Cooks at his Manhattan eatery, which was named World's Best Restaurant in 2017 by the World's 50 Best Restaurants Academy, are preparing 3,000 meals a day for frontline workers and underprivileged New Yorkers, most of them distributed at a Harlem church.

"I had a person the other day who said, 'Oh my God, this is the best meal I've ever had,'" said Humm, standing inside his darkened, empty restaurant, which was shuttered in mid-March by the coronavirus pandemic.

Chef-New-York-Coronavirus-by-Reuters

Chef and owner Daniel Humm works to fill to-go boxes of food to donate. Photo: Reuters/L. Jackson

Working alongside New York City-based nonprofit Rethink Food, which transforms restaurant leftovers into dishes for the disadvantaged, Humm and his staff have churned out some of the 90,000 meals being served each week to the needy during the pandemic.

"When this crisis started happening and we had to turn off the lights for a minute, we were a little bit in shock like everyone was," Humm said. "But then pretty quickly, we felt like we wanted to help in any way we can."

"Food is magical"

Stripped of its tablecloths and upscale clientele, the dining room looks lonely compared with the activity in the kitchen where meals are prepared for distribution at churches, soup kitchens, community centers and housing projects.

Volunteers at Salem United Methodist Church hand out grab-and-go meals from Rethink Food in New York, amid an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the U.S., May 21, 2020. REUTERS/Roselle Chen

Volunteers at Salem United Methodist Church hand out grab-and-go meals. Photo: Reuters/R. Chen.

Humm transformed the kitchen into a commissary using private donations, and $250,000 donated by American Express, all of which went through Rethink Food.After Covid-19 lockdown restrictions lift and some normalcy is restored,

Humm knows he will continue cooking not just for the 1% but for those facing extreme poverty as well. "Food is magical, it's so powerful," he said. "I mean, there are very few things in the world that touch everyone."

New York chef turns Michelin-starred eatery into charity kitchen in Covid-19 crisis