Top chef Daniel Humm as Guest chef in the Ikarus

April 2011 at Restaurant Ikarus: Daniel Humm

Sprinting to be the elite chef.

Wooden spoon or bicycle fork? When Daniel Humm had to choose between a career as a professional mountain biker or a chef, he opted for a career at the stove, luckily for many gourmets! Things quickly progressed in just one direction from then on for the sports-mad Swiss chef: up! Today he creates modern French cuisine at his Art Déco Restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York which already has many fans among guests and critics alike.

When Humm was born in Aargau, Switzerland, in 1976, there were no indications that he would later become one of the best chefs in the world. On the contrary: his father, an architect, wanted him to follow in his footsteps and arranged several internships for him at various architecture offices. However, Humm’s passions lay far away from sitting in an office pouring over architectural maps: mountain biking and good food.

When he left school at the age of 14, he decided against a professional career as a biker and instead opted for life in the kitchen, a place he had loved since being a child, watching his mother make her phenomenal peach marmalade. He finally began a cookery apprenticeship at the Hotel Baur au Lac on Lake Zurich.

The indications began to increase that a master of the art was lying concealed within Humm: he achieved the best performance of his year in Switzerland! From then on, his path has taken him to several renowned hotels and restaurants – until he met his mentor, Gérard Rabaey, at the 3-star restaurant Pont de Brent. This encounter was to shape him for life. Every evening after work, he jotted down Rabaey’s dishes and documented all of their components. He filled 15 folders in total. “All at once, I suddenly knew how the compositions functioned,” he said. “That was a real enlightenment.” Now there was no stopping the young chef from Switzerland.

In 2002, Gault Millau named him the Discovery of the Year and, in 2003, he cooked at the Gasthaus zum Gupf in the Swiss Alps, earning his first Michelin star. And at just 24 years old! He then moved across the pond to San Francisco where he began work as chef in the restaurant at the Campton Place hotel. His refined version of French cuisine combined with original ideas was certainly pleasing to the palates of the American gourmet scene. During this time, he was named by the San Francisco Chronicle as the Rising Star Chef. In 2005, he received the award for Best New Chefs 2005 from Food & Wine. Word of his cooking skills quickly reached the East coast where the New York gastro chef Danny Meyer heard about him. Ever the sportsman, Humm packed up his knives in 2006 and sprinted off to New York to start at the Restaurant Eleven Madison Park. Was it Humm’s ability to refine classic combinations of flavours with a magical pinch of ‘je ne sais quoi’? His endless search for new and unfamiliar taste experiences and exquisite ingredients? Under his direction, the Eleven Madison Park quickly became a new hot spot for gourmets – and still is today. He has received virtually every award going for his creations such as the fillet of red snapper with parsley root purée, green parsley infusion and apple slices: the restaurant was awarded the highest grade of 4 stars by the New York Times and features on the San Pellegrino list of the 50 best restaurants in the world.

At the age of 14, Humm opted for a wooden spoon over a bicycle fork. From this point on, he has continued on an upward path. Today Daniel Humm is one of the best chefs in the world and has received numerous awards. And he has done it all at a pace which would make any professional cyclist proud.