Inside Clemente Bar: Chef Daniel Humm Teams Up with Artist Francesco Clemente 

Chef Daniel Humm’s patronage of the arts has soared to exemplary heights, with the recent announcement of his new concept, Clemente Bar, opening next month. On October 10 at his famed three-Michelin-starred plant-based eatery, Eleven Madison Park (EMP), Humm will welcome in a new bar, created in collaboration with—and named after—the neo-expressionist artist Francesco Clemente. Yesterday, online reservations went live. 

Opening Clemente Bar

Located on the second floor of EMP, the cocktail lounge will emphasize what’s special about the artist’s practice and the dining destination, respectively, featuring new works created by Clemente and a relaxed, seasonal vegetarian menu. Intimate and expressive, with Clemente’s creations painted directly onto frescos and appearing on menus, the bar remains laser-focused on its dynamic cocktail menu from EMP’s Beverage Director Sebastian Tollius, whose cult classics—like the Tomato Highball, Carrot Fizz, and Miso-based Boulevardier—will also be served here.

Two seating options at Clemente Bar will be available, including bar seating for a selection of snacks and drinks, or a four-course pre-fix menu at the counter. Regardless of which path diners decide to take, they will be immersed in two complementary fresco paintings by the Italian, New York-based artist—one of people ascending to the top of the world and one of lovers floating in bliss. 

The new artworks by Clemente at EMP join a suite of others—including  Olympia Scarry’s glass mosaic entryway, Rita Ackermann and Jeppe Hein’s main dining room works, and Rashid Johnson’s murals—adding to the aesthetic allure and power of how art has become a vehicle of expression and change at EMP.

Whitewall spoke with both Humm and Clemente about collaborating on a brand-new bar concept, how Clemente Bar speaks to EMP’s younger customers, and why art that communicates life’s complexities is ever-inspiring.

WHITEWALL: Hey, Daniel! Great to see you again. How’s your summer going?

DANIEL HUMM: I just had a really great trip to California. We did a collaboration with a restaurant there called Single Threat Farms and had a great time. And yeah, we’re gearing up for Clemente Bar! I’m just getting out of a meeting about it. We’re excited.

WW: Very exciting. Congratulations!

DH: Thank you.

WW: And what a talent to collaborate with—Francesco Clemente. How did this come together? I read that you’ve sat in front of him before as a subject?

DH: He’s one of my closest friends, and it just happened completely organically, out of love for each other. I’m very proud of it. It’s very cool because you hear about these things, or romanticize about something like that happening. But you can’t quite plan for it because then it may feel forced. But this just happened. 

There’s a great cocktail—a Bellini, named after a great Italian artist. At some point, Francesco said, “One day I want to have a cocktail named after me.” I guess this happened when I told him about the idea. Then at some point, he said, “Oh, I’m going to make a painting for it!” And then from the painting, eventually we said, “What about Clemente Bar?” It took over a year, probably from the first conversation to the idea that we would do Clemente Bar. It’s a really passionate project for both of us. It’s a beautiful thing.

We always talk about a restaurant being our home and inviting people to our home. And I think from the entire art curation of the restaurant, it’s always happened very organically. It’s always happened out of friendships. And even if you don’t know the story about the art, you can feel that it’s meant to feel like home, I think, because there are these connections.

Behind Daniel Humm and Francesco Clemente’s Friendship

WW: How did you first meet Francesco? 

DH: I met him through another one of my closest friends, Vito Snabel. Years ago, he brought me to Francesco’s studio, and then we became friends quickly.

WW: It’s quite a journey to go from wanting a cocktail named after you to having an entire bar named after you… 

DH: Totally. It’s beautiful. I’m so happy, so excited. And he’s also doing the whole branding of it, in a way. On the menu and on the coasters, there will be little sketches. He made different logos. All of this stuff will be done by him. It’s very cool.

WW: What was the collaborative process like when creating Clemente Bar with the artist? Did you give Francesco creative freedom, or put up a few guardrails?  

DH: It’s his art. Complete freedom. I believe in that. But of course, he wanted to hear, “What are you thinking?” And I would say, “I want it to be a place of joy and fun”— that kind of feedback, but that’s really it. And he’s made these amazing paintings. Just unbelievable.

The Menu at Clemente Bar

WW: What’s on the menu?

DH: It will be more led by the cocktail program. Usually, it’s the other way around at the EMP, where the cocktail is paired with the food. Here, I want Sebastian to have this bar to really push the boundaries, which I’m excited about. For food, there’s two parts of the restaurant, of the bar. There’s Clemente Bar, and then there’s the counter at Clemente Bar. Clemente Bar is an intimate space with a living room. There is also a bar, where bartenders are behind it and you can sit at it, but most of it is low seating, couches, little stools. Very cool, very sexy. We also worked with another friend of mine, Brett Robinson, on creating amazing furniture. He creates these beautiful tables with lights. We’re also building trays that will fit perfectly on the table for food. It’s all meant to be finger food. It’s no knives and forks. It’s about eight or nine dishes. We do look at other bars. It’s bar food, but definitely very different—like our Agedashi Tofu Dog. There are pickles and these amazing tempura fries. 

Then, the counter is a collaboration between the bar team and the kitchen. It’s eight seats. It’s a pre-fixed experience, food and cocktail, that lasts an hour and a half at most. We wanted to have a quick in-and-out experience, but super delicious food paired with cocktails where you can really see them making the bartenders making a cocktail from scratch. That’s gotten lost in the last few years. Most bars, a lot is pre-batched, and maybe they have some finishing touches. Very rarely today, you see a cocktail made from beginning to end in front of you. So, we really wanted to have all the cocktails made in front of you. I think it’s a beautiful thing.

WW: EMP has such a lovely way of giving spins to classic cocktail, and focusing on seasonal ingredients in them, too. The last time I was at EMP, tomato was in season, and the bar made me a tomato cocktail. It seemed that not long after, many other bars in the city also had tomato cocktails—so I see bit of a trend-setting, as well.

DH: Well, we hope to be that. I know we are that. And that’s why change is such a big part of our DNA, because otherwise, we would just become the same as everyone else. In a way, we really love change, and we love to push boundaries. The idea for Clemente Bar is also to just make EMP more accessible at a lower price point, a shorter time. We have seen our audience become so much younger, too. We really want to speak to the future, especially with plant-based eating. It’s the future, so we have to speak to the young people who are the future. It’s also the people who are responding to it more. We just wanted to add another level of dining to our place. There is a quote that I like, “I have to change to stay the same,” and that’s really the ethos of Eleven Madison Park.

“We have to speak to the young people who are the future”

–Daniel Humm

Inspiration Found in Food and Art

WW: You’ve been inspired by art for so long and have such great relationships with the artists in your restaurant, but the focus right now is on Francesco. He’s inspired a cocktail, and an entire bar, but has he ever inspired one of your dishes?

DH: One of the most beautiful exchanges I’ve ever had on a creative level was that Francesco, for a year, came in each season to the restaurant for a meal. Then, the next day, he made a painting. So, there are four paintings as a response to his meals. It’s a conversation, a connection of two languages. It’s really beautiful.

WW: Will we see those paintings? Are they going to be presented in the restaurant? 

DH: No, but we actually decided to use them for the chapter dividers for our cookbook. 

WW: It’s unique that they are reflective of his experience through colors and paintbrush strokes. Most people can only describe or photograph what they ate. That’s lovely.

DH: Yeah, which I think is more powerful.

Meaning Found in Francesco Clement’s Artwork

WW: What do you like about Francesco’s work? Why were you drawn into his work in the first place?

DH: He’s such an amazing artist. He works in different mediums and he has a lot of humor in the work, as well. He is whimsical. He’s so soulful. He’s traveled the world, and I think those travels really come through in his work. But there’s always this sense of humor, which I love. He has had a long career, very prolific, so there are a lot of different chapters that are all so interesting. It’s amazing how much he’s working and constantly pushing new boundaries.

WW: How would you describe the artworks we will see at Clemente Bar?

DH: They’re very human. It addresses a lot of things about life with a sense of humor, I would say; things that could be painful or things that could be complicated, but there’s humor to it.

WW: What painful or complex types of things do you feel his works communicate? Could it be grief, drama, or death? 

DH: I think grief. I think it can be death. Loss. Existence in general.

WW: Are you drawn to artworks and artists that communicate complexities?

DH: I love art that makes you feel and makes you think. I like art that you could live with—and depending on the state you’re in, you could see something different or it makes you think something different. 

Recent Exhibitions Explored by Daniel Humm

WW: Have you seen been to an exhibition lately that you’re still thinking about? 

DH: ​​I just saw the Christopher Wool show downtown. It’s amazing. I thought it was so cool. Very punk rock in this office building that’s not attached to a gallery, and the works weren’t for sale either. It was very cool, and I like Christopher a lot. I think he’s great. There was also, of course, the [Mark] Rothko show at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris earlier this year. That was just monumental. We will never see a show like that again. It was the kind of show that will stay with you for the rest of time. 

There’s a show up right now by a friend of mine, Rita Ackerman, and her new works are incredible. She took it to a whole new place. I also saw the Jenny Holzer show at the Guggenheim. She’s just great artist. I like one of the things she says: “Protect me from what I want.” It’s funny and true. And then, Rashid [Johnson] is a very close friend of mine, and I was just in his studio. His new works are amazing, and he’s having a show coming up. Another artist, Harold Ancart, also has a show coming up, and I just saw the paintings. They were so inspiring and incredible. I also Eva Hesse. That was also up at the same time. Amazing artist; amazing works. 

Functional Art at Eleven Madison Park

WW: You have several obvious artworks at the restaurants, like paintings and framed pieces hung on the wall, but you also have functional sculptures and some lesser-known pieces. Can you share details about those, specifically the step by Daniel Turner and Rashid Johnson’s pieces in the kitchen? 

DH: Daniel Turner did the smelted step of the old kitchen—the step into the dining room. It’s a sculpture, but it’s also very much part of the architecture. Every guest steps on it to be in the restaurant. Rashid made this huge planter that we hold a cactus in that’s in our bar. Rachid also made many ceramics for us—even a ceramic steamer and a ceramic grill that we actually use for cooking.

This is why these friendships are in a way a little different. We’re not a museum. I want the art to be really part of the experience, and to be lived in. I don’t want it to feel like this precious thing that needs to be behind security guards. It should really be in the space, and in a way, because of those friendships, it allows it to be that way. Sometimes art gets too precious. I feel like sometimes we lose the closeness to it somehow. We really want to incorporate it into the experience, when you can be close to it. It’s meaningful, but it’s not precious.

“Sometimes art gets too precious”

–Daniel Humm

WW: A bit more approachable. Do you think about food that way?

DH: One hundred percent. In the beginning of a meal, the first thing anyone is going to get has to be the most delicious thing you’ll ever have because immediately it lets the guard down and you’re like, “Okay, I’m good. This is going to be delicious. I don’t need to worry. This is not a pretentious thing that’s going to happen.” I’m being very intentional about these things because the last thing we want is to be this precious, unapproachable thing.

WW: After you open Clemente Bar, what will keep you busy this fall?

DH: We have a new cookbook for Eleven Madison Park—our first plant-based cookbook, coming out this fall, which we’re very excited about. Then, we are working on a new restaurant in the West Village, in an amazing location on Hudson Street. We started working on the design and the layout, and working with a great architect and some great artists, as well. We’ll create a beautiful restaurant that will open at the end of next year. 

The Ideas Behind Francesco Clemente’s Artworks

WW: Francesco, can you share with us details behind the two paintings you created for Clemente Bar?

FC: I painted two complementary paintings, one of a festive procession of people, carrying gifts and ascending to the top of the world; the other of two lovers floating in bliss above an enormous wave. Both paintings are in gold, red, and black—the colors of alchemic transmutation.

WW: Daniel mentioned that you originally mentioned to him that it would be cool to have a cocktail named after you. How does it feel having a bar named after you—and not just a cocktail?

FC: I spent many hours in front of the painting by [Giovanni] Bellini at The Frick [Collection]. And I enjoy also Bellini, the cocktail. I wish to emulate Bellini the painter and Bellini the cocktail.

WW: How does the bar emulate your creative expression?

FC: I always desired to paint the interior of a non-denominational chapel. I understand that a bar is not a chapel. On the other end, a bar is a theater for joy and for community. And my paintings are meant to witness both joy and community.

“A bar is a theater for joy and for community”

–Francesco Clemente