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Claridge’s parts ways with head chef over plant-based menu
The Mayfair hotel rejected the chef’s call for a fully vegan menu, leading to a ’mutual agreement’ to go their separate ways.
The five-star Claridge’s in Mayfair has lost its head chef after spurning his vision for a fully plant-based menu at the hotel’s restaurant.
Chef Daniel Humm will leave Claridge’s at the end of December 2021, after talks with management regarding overhauling the restaurant’s food offering fell through.
The London hotel announced in a Twitter statement on Friday that it is “not the path we wish to follow at the moment” for its Davies and Brook restaurant, which does a trade in delicacies such as caviar and foie gras.
“We completely respect and understand the culinary direction of a fully plant-based menu that Daniel has decided to embrace and champion and now wants to introduce to London. However, this is not the path we wish to follow here at Claridge’s at the moment, and therefore, regretfully, we have mutually decided to go our separate ways.
“We wish to thank Daniel Humm and his extraordinary team at Davies and Brook for what they have created here at Claridge’s since they opened in 2019, gaining accolades along the way under challenging circumstances.”
Earlier this year, Humm reinvented his three-Michelin-starred New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park as a vegan fine-dining experience, declaring that the modern food system was “simply not sustainable”.
Following the decision to leave Claridge’s, Humm posted a statement on Instagram, which said: “The future for me is plant-based … It has never been more clear that the world is changing, and we have to change with it.”
He added: “Standing behind this mission, and what we believe in, is most important and is unfortunately not something we can compromise on.”
Humm recently spoke out at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, where he said his life’s work was “to make plant-based food delicious, magical and luxurious”, adding that plant-based food was “better for our planet and our health”.
Davies and Brook will continue to operate under Humm’s direction until the end of December, after which “future plans” for the eatery will be announced.