Eleven Madison Park To Close For Revamp

This summer, Will Guidara and Daniel Humm will close their acclaimed restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, for a major refresh—the first since they took over Danny Meyer's spot 11 years ago. "It's time for a change," Humm tells the New York Times. The grand Art Deco space will transform with a new entryway, an expanded bar area and more colors all around, but "if people are startled, I will have failed," Brad Cloepfil, who has been tasked with redesigning the space, explains.

The restaurant should reopen in September, and in the month's between, Guidara, Humm and their team will head to the Hamptons to host a pop-up version of their restaurant called EMP Summer House. In addition to the sit-down restaurant, there will also be a tent with picnic tables for lobster boils, a far more relaxed approach to dining than guests are used to seeing from the team. (It's something Manhattanites may get a taste of when the pair opens their long-awaited casual restaurant, Made Nice, in Midtown next month.)

Eleven Madison Park isn't the only top-flight restaurant in the U.S. to revamp recently. Thomas Keller's French Laundry just opened a new $10 million kitchen. And in Chicago, Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas closed their flagship, Alinea, to remodel the space and reconfigure their menu.

Humm's menu may shift somewhat with the closure, but there are scant details on how. In the meantime, fans of the restaurant's best-loved dishes, like the carrot tartare and sea urchin carpaccio, will find them on a special 11-course menu that will be offered starting in April.