Eleven Madison Park's Vegan-Only Restaurant Has a Secret Meat Room for the Rich

[cinematicdiversions]

https://ny.eater.com/2021/9/29/22700073/eleven-madison-park-vegan-nyt-review-meat-room

New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells slaughtered Eleven Madison Park’s revamped, veganized menu in an unstarred critical review this week — but the real golden nugget from the piece is that the all-vegan restaurant, has, well, a secret beef room. According to Wells, Eleven Madison Park offers an optional beef tenderloin dish to customers in its swanky private dining room, while maintaining the much-hyped vegan menu out front. Wells writes, “It’s some kind of metaphor for Manhattan, where there’s always a higher level of luxury, a secret room where the rich eat roasted tenderloin while everybody else gets an eggplant canoe.”



I am sorry but this is hilarious.

As Chelsea Fagan states.

can't stop thinking about the secret beef room at eleven madison park. let's reboot boardwalk empire but about bootlegging beef into other plant-based restaurants

I think more vegan restaurants need secret rooms where you can get a decent steak.

[abqtommy]

1. Hoo boy! I guess next it'll be a steak house with a secret vegan room! nt

[LiberatedUSA]

2. Or a Steak & Shake serving a steak.

[edhopper]

3. For those unfamiliar

Eleven Madison is a $$$$ restaurant with meals that can cost hundreds of $. It is not an everyday Vegan restaurant.
It was one of the top NY restaurants and when it went all vegan was a very big deal among NY Foodies.

[cinematicdiversions]

4. Their vegan meal is a $385 price I believe. Nt

[wryter2000]

8. Then, everyone who eats there is rich

What is this "secret room for the rich" about?

[edhopper]

9. It's not a secret room

They have a private dining room for parties and such and will serve meat there until the end of the year (according to the review) They just don't want meat in the main dining room.

[Hortensis]

25. :) No kidding. Fwiw, their site says they donate 5 meals to

"food insecure New Yorkers" for every one sold. This started during the pandemic when their restaurant virtually closed down and they joined an organization to prepare, eventually, a million meals for the food-insecure. Obviously, they afford to, of course, but it was a certainly a positive way dealing with a time of severe business reverses and now they're...very busy.

[cinematicdiversions]

31. Can you imagine being "Food Inscure"

And some guy shows up to serve you a root vegetable in a clay jar?

It is like something out of that one Blackadder episode.

[Hortensis]

32. Lol! A luscious turnip, but nicely plated with an artistic swirl of sauce. nt

[edhopper]

10. That is for the full chef's menu

10 courses.
You could eat there for half that. A bargain!

[Celerity]

26. The $335 (not $385) for a the full 10 course tasting menu (I am NOT saying that's a good deal, btw)

Daniel Humm has a history of problematic decisions.

In 2016, he essentially halved the number of courses in the tasting menu (non vegan back then ) without changing the base price (granted some with larger portions) whilst also doing away with tipping, BUT slamming on a huge service charge, so basically an enforced mandatory 31% tip.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/dining/eleven-madison-park-menu.html

[dsc]

27. I agree with the mandatory tip thing

we can quibble about the exact percent but the fact is the wait staff should be paid a decent wage and we should pay for our meals and that should be that.

[Celerity]

28. I say just pay them a decent wage (like most of the rest of the advanced world does).

Many US restos take a big chunk of those 'service charges' as well. That practice should be banned (if legally possible, I admit I am not an expert on US wage/employee law).

[BradAllison]

5. I seem to remember a thread here

Maybe it wasn't that particular restaurant, but whatever. NYC has a lot of choices.

Anthony Bourdain always said get a dirty water dog in NY instead.

[Dr. Strange]

17. Was it Olive Garden?

I think I remember a thread about that New York restaurant.

[BradAllison]

18. LOL n/m

[Hortensis]

23. So the facile class resentment really IS hilarious.

Strange note, though. I know trumpists are exhaling victimization syndrome with every breath these days, along with the virus, and of course there're the eternal class resentments on the far left also, but the NYT? Have they discovered a persecuted-subscriber complex to be fed?

[wryter2000]

6. No reason to feel sorry for the people getting eggplant

That's what they went there for.

[Demovictory9]

7. that's horrible

[Dial H For Hero]

12. How so? People can eat whatever they like, what's the big deal?

[LanternWaste]

15. Waste, excess, extravagance, etc...

But sure... maybe you think/pretend those concepts are building blocks towards a just and equitable society.

(as an aside... not everyone can eat whatever they like. A relevant concept to understand unless one embraces greed as a standard of existence)


Part II

[Hortensis]

34. Fwiw, probably little wasted or excess food in a restaurant

committed to sustainable food and a clientele into veggie-same.

I imagine it's the money that offends. To me an irritating reminder of our refusal to take responsible action.

[jimfields33]

14. Yeah I put this about 80 million on a list of problens in the world

I say let them serve what they want. Good for them. Variety is the spice of life of it used to be.

[Hortensis]

35. :) +1.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. That review of the vegan restaurant was fucking hilarious.

In tonight’s performance, the role of the duck will be played by a beet, doing things no root vegetable should be asked to do. Over the course of three days it is roasted and dehydrated before being wrapped in fermented greens and stuffed into a clay pot, as if it were being sent to the underworld with the pharaoh.

The pot is wheeled out to your table, where a server smashes the clay with a ball-peen hammer. The beet is cleaned of pottery shards and transferred to a plate with a red-wine and beet-juice reduction that is oddly pungent in a way that may remind you of Worcestershire sauce.

They used to do a similar beet act at Agern, a New Nordic restaurant in Grand Central Terminal, roasting it inside a crust of salt and vegetable ash. That beet tasted like a beet, but more so. The one at Eleven Madison Park tastes like Lemon Pledge and smells like a burning joint.

I suspect that the summer-squash dish that appears halfway through the menu somehow descends from the butter-poached lobster. I don’t know what else accounts for the viscous liquid that looks and sort of feels like browned butter, but clearly isn’t. It tastes of vadouvan and something else, something harsh and sharp that overpowers the nugget of sesame-seed tofu hidden inside a squash blossom.

[Hekate]

20. That is damn pretentious, right up there with some of the reviews I've read of other nouveau...

… restaurants.

And definitely hilarious.

[brooklynite]

13. "The Rich" vs "everyone else"?????

“Everyone else” is (as the purists here have complained) spending $330 for a Vegan menu. If people want to make a special order, what’d the problem?

FWIW - my wife and I have the finest Umbrian beef, cooked rare, for this evening’s dinner. Only Eurp 50 a person for four courses and wine.

[marie999]

16. If they use the same pot, pans, utensils, etcetera

for both vegan and meat meals, they are not serving vegan meals. They should go by rules similar to kosher.

[cinematicdiversions]

21. I have to confess I have never understood this.

I assume they clean the Pan wipe the grill down whatever between cooking why would it matter?

Honestly you're turning a simple dietary choice into a complicated religion.

[marie999]

22. For the Vegans I know it is close to a religion.

[Hortensis]

24. Sure, but no doubt most of those who eat there knew about the

private dining room. This is their community after all. And others who didn't know now do, though probably they were few for the very reason that these things are important to them.

I checked the restaurant's web site. During the pandemic, they supposedly became more immersed in environmental food issues and food insecurity and eventually joined the movement to food sustainability by changing to a plant-based menu.

Veganism is not mentioned. Sustainability concerns do not include many of the philosophical issues of veganism, and I assume those vegans who are scrupulous about what they eat would know that.

[Hekate]

19. The vegans I know act like it's a religion. The religious I know with strict diets shun places...

… that don't adhere to their strict dietary requirements. You can see where I’m going with this, I trust.

How can a vegan eat at a celebrated vegan restaurant that secretly prepares and serves steaks out of the same kitchen? Isn’t that a serious breach of trust?

Hekate
No specific dietary restrictions in my kitchen, but I’ll endeavor to make something you can eat as long as you understand my utensils get used for everything….

[Voltaire2]

29. You don't know enough vegans.

A lot of us aren’t fanatic about our diet. Until rather recently vegan restaurants were scarce to say the least. Consequently if you dined out you selected from the few hopefully vegan choices.

[Lucinda]

30. ❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️

[Dorian Gray]

33. According to the original story

the room will be serving beef only until the end of this year.

I'm curious if they're fulfilling contacts from before the shutdown, either from private dining customers or from their contract with a farm. (EMP buys from local hudson valley farms.)

It's not like the restaurant itself isn't some rich person fantasy place.... At $335 per diner, how much MORE wealthy do you have to actually be to dine in the private dining room?