Ending Hunger in America

there is a painting here

at 11 madison park it’s a chalkboard

painting

that has mostly been wiped clean the

painting was a collaboration with my

dear friend

the renowned artist rita ackerman during

our renovation

we wanted to create something to

symbolize a new beginning

the concept of a chalkboard was perfect

it showed our willingness to erase

and redraw to start anew to rethink

and there is a lot we need to rethink

today

and now more than ever the way we eat

i’ve lived in new york for more than a

decade

restaurants are such an important part

of the fabric of this city

but right now with so many of them

closed

and with so many more at risk of closing

the loss is profound

restaurants are the cornerstones of our

communities

they celebrate our differences what

makes our cultures distinct

they can transport us across oceans and

borders

that can bring us home in a time of

distancing and division that seems more

and more like a miracle

but what restaurants mean what

restaurants do

is evolving too there’s no other choice

so in our own current state of crisis we

need to use this opportunity

to wipe the chalkboard clean and rethink

the role

of a restaurant in our society by we

i don’t just mean a chef like me i mean

all of us

we all have a stake in the answer

but first we need to reframe the

question

it’s not just how will restaurants

survive

but who do we serve my own answer

to that is evolving too when you walk

down the streets of new york today

you come across long lines i mean

seriously long lines

stretching for blocks and blocks and the

thing you notice

about the men and women and the children

in these lines

is they’re holding empty bags pushing

empty cards

backs and cards they hope to fill at

food pantries

these people our neighbors are

experiencing food

insecurity this was a crisis before the

pandemic

one that especially affected households

of color

adults with disabilities and families

and kids but the pandemic has made

things dramatically worse

in new york it has pushed tens of

thousands of people to food pantries

often for the first time today

1.5 million new yorkers are unable

to afford food and across the nation

one in six americans are expected to

face food insecurity this year

that includes almost 17 million children

at the same time the pandemic has driven

my industry to the brink of extinction

covet 19 threatens up to 85 percent of

restaurants in new york

and as restaurants close farm suppliers

are forced to get rid

of tens of millions of pounds of excess

foods

for me the collision of these two crises

people going hungry restaurants and

suppliers sitting idle

and dumping food brought the issue into

focus

in a way that little else has

but that forced me to take a step back

to do some soul searching

and to rethink my goals one of our chefs

matt joseak began to do exactly that

he saw how much excess food we had at

the restaurant

he had the idea and it was a great idea

that he could use the food to create

meals

and give them to people in need he

started a non-for-profit organization

called rethink food over the next few

years

i worked with matt to recruit other

restaurants to join

the idea seemed to be catching on

building momentum

then the pandemic it took only a few

days

until 11 madison park was closed and it

took only

a couple of weeks before we had to lay

off our entire team

people who had been here for years some

who had moved here from

asia south america australia

europe who had to return home

a restaurant was a community but more

than that it was our family

that family was gone and might never

come back

and for a while it seemed that new york

wouldn’t either

overnight the busiest streets in the

world just emptied out

emptied of cars bikes people

suddenly i could hear birds i never

heard before

but i also heard the ambulances at every

hour of the day

i saw central park turned into a field

hospital

for weeks i mourned to tens of thousands

of deaths

including my old friend floyd cardoz

whose restaurant tabla was right next to

mine

and across the city i saw the lines at

the food pantries

grow and grow all the while

my restaurant was sitting empty unused

my staff was out of work i was talking

to farmers who were destroying food

while more and more people were going

hungry

suddenly i saw that i was in a position

to help

i’m certainly no doctor i’m not a first

responder

but as a chef i know how to mass produce

healthy delicious meals

chefs have the skill the space the

connections that soup kitchens don’t

so we made a decision to reorient 11

madison park

re-imagine it for the pandemic

we started doing research visiting the

soup kitchens these commissaries all

over new york

to learn more about cooking and

distributing these free meals

and i brought back members of my team to

reopen our kitchen

in april we turned the lights back on

there were only 10 of us all wearing

masks

all a little bit afraid and uncertain

all wondering if we should have just

stayed home

but after a few days the kitchen felt

like the safest and most important place

we could be

i finally felt i was making a difference

i felt connected to my work in a way

that i hadn’t in years

i fell in love again with the craft the

same love

i thought i would feel when 11 madison

park was named the best restaurant in

the world

and it’s not just me my staff felt the

same way

since then we produced over half a

million of meals

at 11 madison park alone we’ve done it

efficiently

as restaurants are designed to do and

the food is delicious

people have told us they had the best

meal of their lives

that’s what they used to say at 11

madison park 2

but this meant more i talked about the

magic of food

but this was a different kind of magic

one i thought we could scale

i had found a way to help my city i had

found a way

to keep my restaurant open could this

work for other restaurants

could it provide a lifeline to help

people

for the first time i began to view a

restaurant as a community

institution this was a new idea for me

but i realized i was late to the game

across new york we found restaurants

making an impact

often at great personal risk we found a

church kitchen in harlem

delivering free food to its neighbors we

met the owner of a soulful restaurant in

brooklyn

who had become a beacon of hope we saw

employees at a family-owned mexican

restaurant in the bronx

workers who risk deportation to come to

work

who can’t be paid because the restaurant

has no money

who are out delivering meals anyway

even in cases where they have very

little

they give everything but running and

sustaining a restaurant is hard

profit margins are thin and we don’t

have much of insulation against the

crisis

11 madison park for all of its success

was a case in point

almost overnight we couldn’t pay rent we

couldn’t pay our staff

and if we couldn’t what was the

restaurant down the

street supposed to do what we’re doing

at 11 madison park

and at restaurants all over the city is

a powerful thing

it doesn’t just address food insecurity

it helps restaurants save jobs

it’s helping our neighborhoods maintain

the places that mean so much

and the power of this model is that the

infrastructure is already in place

we’re using food that otherwise is being

wasted

we’re distributing meals through

networks that already exist

and we’re using chefs who understand the

food system

so the changes we’re making don’t have

to be just

crisis measures they can be permanent

they should be permanent when we’re able

to fully reopen

we should be able to keep serving the

broader community

because we got a system that is cheaper

more efficient

more effective and more delicious than

what we had before

if we’re successful we can actually

ensure

that every american has consistent

access to healthy

meals we can end food and security in

this country

once and for all but to achieve it

all of us have to play a role chefs also

need to push the critics in the awards

organization

james beard’s 50 best michele sagat

to broaden the range of the values we

celebrate

i still believe that cooking is an art

form

and we should continue to honor chefs

who advance the culinary arts

who move us in ways we didn’t expect but

we should also find ways

to celebrate restaurants for other

achievements

for that diversity their inclusivity

their social impact

we need to give restaurants more

incentives to not just create the best

food

but also to do the most good

of course no awards organization however

prestigious

has the power you do i’m asking all of

you

to help create an industry that is truly

worthy

of the communities we serve you can do

that

by becoming more mindful about where you

spend your dollars

you can choose restaurants based not

just on their rankings

but also on their heart

at rethink we had the idea that we could

help people

to do that to help identify restaurants

with a higher purpose

think of lead certification you see on

buildings

that meet standards of going green our

system

rethinks certified works the same way to

communicate

that the restaurant is dedicated to

ending hunger

of course our idea is just one of many

and hopefully others will join us in

this mission

hopefully the private funding we’re

receiving

distributing these meals will show

corporations

and the government how well this model

works

and how much it can scale because we

have to remember

the pandemic didn’t cause food

insecurity it made it worse

and when the pandemic is over the food

crisis will still be with us

there will still be a shocking number an

unacceptable number

of americans who are eating too little

or unhealthy foods but i’m full of hope

more so today than in a long time

because this is not a problem

of not enough food this is a problem

of organization distribution and

communication

these are problems we’ve begun to solve

this is a system

we’ve begun to change i believe

this is a new beginning not just for 11

madison park

but for all of us a clean chalkboard

a clean slate as we redraw the role

of the restaurant yes let us fill it

again with beautiful guests but also

let us infuse it with purpose

thank you so much for listening