Swiss chef Daniel Humm loves New York. He told us so in his 2013 cookbook, I Love New York. Ingredients and Recipes. His vegan restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, has only just hosted the United Nations General Assembly, where it celebrated Pharrell Williams as a new Unesco goodwill ambassador (Humm is also in the fold). This week, though, the chef is celebrating a star addition of his own – the Clemente Bar, named for his friend and fellow NY adoptee, the Italian artist and publisher Francesco Clemente. Humm’s affection for his adopted city is, obviously, only deepening.
Francesco Clemente and Daniel Humm collaborate on Clemente Bar
Francesco Clemente and chef Daniel Humm in the artist's New York studio
The pair, who met a few years ago after being introduced by the art dealer Vito Schnabel, have been inspired to bring the bar up to cultural scratch via their shared love of the cosy, club-like confines of Kronenhalle Bar in Zurich. It is, in its way, a cheeky cultural exchange – the important art-filled European hotspot, designed by architect Robert Haussmann in 1956 is itself created in the classic American bar style (expert cocktails, no music).
One of the friezes designed Francesco Clemente has created for Eleven Madison Park
But then Humm’s vision for Eleven Madison, where he rocked up as a seriously gifted young chef, nigh-on 20 years ago, before declaring his restaurant plant-based in 2021, was always going to be more than a destination for artful cuisine. The chef’s taste for contemporary art meant it soon became a palette for great artworks, too. Olympia Scarry’s glass mosaic at the entrance, Rashid Johnson murals and works by Rita Ackermann and Jeppe Hein point the way to Humm’s most ambitious collaboration so far: the Clemente Bar and counter, which will fill the upstairs floor at Eleven Madison Park.
Clemente's friezes are rich with golden stories
Within its confines, Clemente, painting directly onto the wall, fully expresses his notion of ‘personal identities as fragmented entities’. These sprawling friezes, rich with gold, see figures embrace and float in dreamlike states, sail in the ocean in pod-like boats and lose their heads to sprouting, golden branches rich with gilded pomegranates.
Daniel Humm and Francesco Clemente at the artist's New York studio
The fantasy gets delightfully real when it comes to the Clemente Bar menu, created to offer a more relaxed version of seasonal fine-dining classics. At the counter, diners can choose from a multi-course prix-fixe menu. The new cocktail list, by beverage director Sebastian Tollius, of Leek Martini fame, promises fresh mixes with new-era spirits and unexpected raw materials.
As the countdown to opening night quickens, new cocktails are being teased on social media, with regular announcements that ‘bookings are being taken on a rolling basis’, and a magic missive for those who simply can’t wait to visit: ‘New slots will become available every day’.
From 10 October 2024, find Clemente Bar at Eleven Madison Park, 11 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10010, United States, clementebar.com
Artist at work: Francesco Clemente's New York studio
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