Foraging in the Forests of Srinagar With Eleven Madison Park's Daniel Humm

18.09.2023 - 18:29 / cntraveler.com

“Shall we jump in?”

Chef Daniel Humm stares intently at a stream deep in Kashmir’s Dachigam National Park. I see a glimmer of a boy from Switzerland behind the serious man who has gotten every accolade a chef could ever dream of at his restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York City. This includes eight James Beard awards, three Michelin stars, and climbing to number one on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2017—a time, he recalls, he felt the most uninspired.

To understand Humm’s recent journey to India, you must rewind to that fateful recognition. “You would think that was the goal, the best place to be: it was actually the worst. I felt so disoriented,” says Humm. He no longer knew how to get up in the morning and motivate his team. “When we reached the mountaintop of being the best restaurant in the world, there was no award left...” Humm had lost his North Star.

Coming off a lengthy redesign of EMP, the pandemic pushed him to the brink of bankruptcy. Humm answered by turning his restaurant into a community kitchen. And when EMP reopened in mid-2021, Humm revealed his most-daring decision yet, to risk his Michelin stars to go completely plant-based. Finding his footing on this new terrain, Humm raced past early critics to become the first 100 per cent plant-based restaurant to win three Michelin stars.

Now, he stands in one of India's most beautiful valleys, fulfilling another pandemic resolution: to come to India and cook a fully plant-based menu. With him on this journey is crack chef Varun Totlani of Mumbai’s ingredient-driven, fine-dining darling Masque, a constant figure on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. But at the moment, Humm isn’t thinking about his menu at Masque, nor the black bear that raced down a tree a few feet from him minutes ago. He’s entranced by the cold Himalayan-fed river, and much like his career, he is the first with the courage, and the curiosity, to jump all the way in.

I meet Humm and five members of his EMP team for the first time at a deathly quiet vegetarian restaurant near Dal Lake, sporting the glassy eyes and tousled hair of travelers battling jet lag. Soon after I greet the team, Humm shoots up and says, “Alright, let’s go,” leading them and Masque’s outfit out of the restaurant.

Chef Varun Totlani showing Team EMP Srinagar's Old City market.

Our entourage of over a dozen cooks and videographers take to the narrow lanes of the Old City of Srinagar, examining bushels of pungent winter garlic, varieties of dried mushrooms and leafy greens, foxglove, and Kashmiri chilis. If we were almost anywhere else, this flurry would have attracted boatloads of bystanders. But here, life goes on, perhaps best exemplified by a man meditatively cutting his toenails, his foot