At first, I felt a little ashamed to tell people I went to Eleven Madison Park, so much so that I considered not writing this post. It feels outrageous to spend over £300 on a meal (for that is how much it costs), and we went back and forth quite a bit over whether or not to go. But you know, people spend that much money on sports events and travelling somewhere to attend a concert. Loving food isn’t a crime, whatever The Menu may have told us! So, I’m going to own it: yes, we paid an obscene amount of money for a very good dinner, as a once in a lifetime experience. And it was great!

Dr HH and I first learned about Eleven Madison Park during the pandemic – it’s a three Michelin starred, best in the world restaurant that went vegan a few years ago under the direction of chef Daniel Humm. We watch a lot of Masterchef and are always jealous and annoyed that the fine dining eateries of the later stages are off limits to us vegans. But the tide is slowly turning. A few of the fancy restaurants in London do vegan menus now (Pied a Terre has a vegan menu, while Gauthier Soho is now all vegan), which we have enjoyed for around £100 per person. Could three Michelin stars really justify tripling the price? Could the food really be three times better than what we’d had in London? The answer was…maybe?

One area where New York definitely had London beaten was the service. I mean, service is good in those restaurants in London but on another level in New York. It was attentive without being obtrusive, which is quite a fine line, and everything was synchronised and appeared effortless. Service was also quite friendly – one of the servers was from the same area of the UK as us, and this caused a lot of excitement amongst her and her colleagues. A huge bonus was that the servers described the dishes to us at a decent volume so we could catch all the details, unlike in some other places where we’ve strained our ears to hear everything.

You can either order the full ten course tasting menu, or a shorter bar menu. We decided if we were doing it, we might as well do it properly, so we went for the full ten courses.

The first dish we received was this radish tea, made from daikon and green radishes with coconut and lime leaf. My expectations for a radish tea were pretty low and it looks quite unremarkable, but this was actually the second best dish of the evening. I’m not sure I would have called myself a radish fan before this, but now I’m converted. At least once a week, Dr HH and I reminisce about this tea.

The tea was kind of accompanied by this little bite – it arrived a bit later, but not later enough to be a separate course. It was a steamed dumpling topped with confit radish, served with a lemongrass chilli oil. Again, this non-radish lover was impressed!

At the start of the evening, our server asked us if there’s any food we don’t like, and it’s just as well I never said radish, because the next course was radish salad. The radish was accompanied by fermented mint, fennel, lemongrass oil, and something creamy, which we didn’t catch. It was a fresh and tasty course.

Finally a deviation from radish! In the middle of the table were these tostadas (one each) topped with beetroot, then we each got our own plate with some additional pickled beetroot, horseradish cream, and some kind of seaweedy-flavoured black cream. Horseradish is another thing I could have listed as a dislike, but I gave it a go. Truthfully, this dish was not for me. We slathered on the white and black creams as instructed, and the tostada had a nice crunch, but these were just not my favourite flavours unfortunately. My companions enjoyed it more than I did.

The bread and butter course was much more like it! I cannot even begin to describe how good this bread was. It was basically beautifully laminated pastry, not bread, so it was flaky, crispy and buttery. The butter was made with confit garlic. Together, they were absolutely incredible. This was honestly the most decadent and sumptuous course of the night. If Dr HH and I reminisce about the radish tea once a week, we reminisce about this bread once a day. After we’d finished eating, we were offered a second round and greedily said yes. I’m not sure Dr HH will ever forgive me for turning down a third round – it was for the greater good that we didn’t totally fill up at this stage, but we know we’ll never have bread and butter that good again. Just sublime. If you go, I’d recommend ordering that third round and trying to sneak it into a bag to takeaway.

We moved on to a soup with silken tofu with charred leeks and onions, which was nice but obviously a bit of a come down after the bread.

This was more fun, though it’s hard to see here. It was essentially a big Yukon gold potato chip topped with black truffle, aioli, and corn masa. The texture was really fun and it was well flavoured. The truffle was not overwhelming at all.

We had been looking forward to this course because we’d seen other tables around us being served. A trolley was wheeled to each table for the plating up and it was all a bit theatrical, which we love. It was a yukon potato again, this time hollowed out and filled with truffle cream. It was served with ginger oil, potato and mushroom powder, potato broth, and black truffle shavings. Alas, the truffle was too much for me and Mother HH this time, which was a shame because the other flavours were really good but got a bit lost when combined with the truffle. Dr HH enjoys truffle more than we do, so he enjoyed this dish.

The last savoury course featured shiitake mushrooms two ways. Some were grilled (still grilling at the table, as you see), and others served poached atop a bed of rice. It was served with shiso pesto, fingerling lime, and yuzu broth. I’m a big mushroom fan, so this was a real winner.

Next came a palate cleansing popsicle – tonka bean, with apple and maple. It was fun and refreshing, and actually better than the real dessert…

It was not a winner for us, though Mother HH enjoyed it quite a bit. What you see here is an orangey disc that was balanced on orange ice cream, and there was some apricot and almond in there as well. The orange was a bit bitter for me, and ultimately I always want a more decadent dessert. If it doesn’t contain chocolate or cream, is it really a pudding?

The finishing bite was actually far superior – this was a chocolate sesame pretzel and it was beautifully crunchy and moreish. It was served with some vermouth, which it turns out I really do not like. There was a non-alcoholic drink option as well.

There are a few things to be aware of if you’re considering a booking – you have to pay in advance, when you make your reservation online, and there are no refunds if you can’t attend. So, probably don’t book it for the day you’re arriving in New York, in case your travel plans go awry. Service is not included, so you should budget to pay a tip as well as your drinks bill on the night. And if you’re a tourist who travels light, there’s no dress code to worry about – some diners were informally dressed, others were dressed up, but there was no awkwardness around it.

If you’re on the fence about making a booking, honestly, the radish tea and the bread and butter course were pretty much worth the fee. They were absolutely sublime. I certainly won’t expect to be back in this restaurant any time soon, but for a one off treat it was really delightful.