The acclaimed Italian painter Francesco Clemente had always wanted to have a drink named after him (the Bellini, after all, is a homage to the Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini). Now, tMr. Clemente, now 72 and based in New York since 1981, is getting a whole bar named after him.
Clemente Bar, which will open on Oct. 11 upstairs at Eleven Madison Park and begin accepting reservations on Sept. 20, is the next step in the evolution of Daniel Humm’s world-renowned restaurant to plant-based dining. Mr. Clemente has made several dreamlike paintings with amorous figures to set the mood at Mr. Humm’s new jewel-box space, serving innovative cocktails and snacks; an eight-seat chef’s counter will offer a vegan, faster-paced (and more gently priced) counterpoint to the $365-a-head prix fixe tasting menu downstairs.
“When Eleven Madison started with this plant-based chapter, we realized our audience is changing — it’s much more diverse, it’s much younger,” said Mr. Humm, 47, who reopened the restaurant in 2021 with an entirely plant-based menu after a pandemic closing. It was the first vegan restaurant to receive three Michelin stars.
The idea for the bar grew out of the close friendship between the chef and the artist, who were introduced several years ago by the art dealer Vito Schnabel. In conversations over the past two years, Mr. Humm shared his idea to create a more casual, accessible experience upstairs, in the former private dining space overlooking the main dining room. “We still believe so much in the craft of cooking and bringing it to a certain level,” Mr. Humm said, “but wanted to do it in an environment that felt cool and personal.”
The two men share a love of Kronenhalle Bar, in Zurich, the city where Mr. Humm grew up, and which Mr. Clemente frequented in his formative years with his Swiss art dealer. That dark, sumptuous space, studded with artworks by Miro, Picasso and Klee, became a key reference for Clemente Bar. (Mr. Humm sent his architect and interior designer for the project, Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works, to Zurich for inspiration.)
At Clemente Bar, two dramatic 17-foot-long murals by Mr. Clemente, both in palettes of rust, black and gold, fill the width of the room and face off across Mr. Cloepfil’s wood-paneled interior with plush, low-slung seating and lounge tables. In the painting behind the bar, a giant wave crashes over a lyrical figure taking the bait of a fisherman poised on the rim a small boat, with lovers entwined inside.
“Drowning in a sea of love is drowning in the sea of love, you know?” Mr. Clemente said playfully. In the facing mural over the banquette, a festive parade of figures and creatures progresses toward the foot of a giant and scales a ladder to the unknown. “There’s a procession toward bliss,” said the artist, who rose to fame in the 1980s with surreal, allegorical works that helped reinvigorate figurative painting. (An exhibition of his new work will open at Lévy Gorvy Dayan in New York on Oct. 29.)
Mr. Humm said he was “ecstatic” with the results. “The one thing we said we wanted it to be is a place of joy, of people coming together,” said Mr. Humm, who gave the artist no other parameters. The chef likes that people will read different meanings in the paintings as they enjoy gorgeous cocktails, such as “5th Leaf” with Suyo quebranta pisco, smoked sunchoke, pear and shiso, and inventive plant-based versions of finger food including tempura fries, sake pickles and an agedashi tofu dog.
On the domed ceiling at the top of the stairs to the second floor, Mr. Clemente has painted a tree of life, with branching figures “interacting with each other in sometimes naughty ways,” he said, describing it as the “invite” to Clemente Bar. It is the first place his work will be on permanent public view in his adopted hometown.
“Daniel loves New York and I love New York because it is a living city,” Mr. Clemente said. “And in a living city, the bar is definitely a place for community, no?”
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