Editor's Note: The James Beard Awards are to chefs what the National Book Awards or Pulitzer Prizes are to poets. As it so happens, there are those of us in the poetry world (a-hem) who follow the dining scene in New York almost as closely as we watch the poetry scene. We were thrilled to learn that poet Lindsay Daigle moonlights at Eleven Madison Park, whose chef Daniel Humm took top honors at last week's JBAs. She sends this report about what it means to work in a four-star restaurant in NYC, and about the after-party, which was widely reported on in the local news and blog world. Thanks, Lindsay
--- photo by Marybeth Merrell
Ever since Eleven Madison Park received a four-star review in
August 2009 from the New York Times then restaurant critic, Frank Bruni, the
term “four-star” has taken on a whole new meaning. Of course the fourth star acknowledges
refinement, confidence, and accomplishment. A restaurant operating at the
“four-star” level delivers experiences rather than simple meals, emits culinary
expertise, and moves with the grace of a newly melted spring river that knows
exactly where to flow along its banks. And yes, EMP is all that—and so much
more. But the four-star attitude doesn’t end when the last checked coat is
given back at the door. To an EMP staff member, that four-star suit jacket and
tie are removed only to put on a pair of four-star sneakers. They take out
their four-star subway pass, play some four-star sudoku on the train before
arriving home and dreaming four-star dreams. Extra whipped cream on the
frappuccino? That’s four-star. A dog wearing rain galoshes the same color as
the woman walking it? That’s four-star.
So when Chef Daniel Humm won the 2010 James Beard Award for Best Chef in New York City this past Monday, it only made sense to cause some four-star ruckus: champagne-soaked white linen table cloths stamped with the footprints of table-dancing JBA winners (namely Humm and Daniel Boulud); Brooklyn Brewery kegs where there usually rests elegant flowers and laurel branch arrangements with Brewmaster Garrett Oliver (JBA nominee) toasting a red plastic cup nearby; cooks, servers, hosts, managers, and their beloved guests sweating onto the usually well-polished terrazzo floors, hands in the air, belting out “Don’t Stop Believin’.” NBC New York’s Feast site says it best: “Impeccably polished restaurant crew by day; epic party-planners by late-night.” They even have footage of the famed Journey sing-along from the party—evidence of just how proud the EMP community is of Humm’s success.
At the award ceremony itself, Chef Humm invited General Manager Will Guidara and Wine Director John Ragan on stage with him for his acceptance speech to show how communal EMP’s gradation of triumph has been. They work really hard. They play even harder. But after that, they work even harder than they played (you can imagine the mess to clean up before lunch service on Tuesday morning). And that’s four-star.
