Star chef savors sale of Greenwich Village penthouse

If it were to get a review, the sale of a Greenwich Village penthouse by award-winning chef Daniel Humm might merit four stars.

Humm — who owns Eleven Madison Park, the fine-dining sensation that strikingly switched to an all-plant menu in 2021 — has found a taker for his 40 Fifth Ave. penthouse for $17 million, public records show.

Around the time Humm began serving cypress seeds seasoned with kelp to stand in for caviar, he paid $14.5 million for the duplex co-op, which means he was able to realize a 17% windfall in a quick two years at a time when some high-end units have struggled to turn a profit. The deal, which appeared in the city register Wednesday, closed on July 25.

Crowning a 15-story prewar building at West 11th St., the combined apartment features four bedrooms, 4½ baths, two fireplaces and a spiral staircase, plus a kitchen with south-facing windows, stainless-steel appliances and limestone counters.

According to tax records, the buyer of the unit, which appears to have been marketed privately, was billionaire Randy Lerner, a former owner of both the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League and the British soccer club Aston Villa. Previously, Lerner was the chairman of MBNA, a credit card company purchased in 2006 by Bank of America for $35 billion.

Humm, a native of Switzerland who was recruited by restaurateur Danny Meyer to run the kitchen at Eleven Madison before Humm and partner Will Guidara bought the eatery outright in 2011, has regularly wowed reviewers. The restaurant, considered one of the world’s best, has retained three Michelin stars since 2012, including after it swapped out dairy and meat for vegan-only options.

But Guidara and Humm parted ways in 2019, with Humm reportedly buying out Guidara’s stake in their overarching hospitality business, called Make It Nice, with the help of investors.

Make It Nice also owned the popular eponymous restaurant at the nearby NoMad Hotel, which closed for good in 2021, even though similar outposts remain in Las Vegas and other locations. Humm later sued the New York hotel’s operator Sydell Group for allegedly stiffing him $2 million in fees. 

Make It Nice also previously owned a fast-casual eatery around the corner on West 28th Street, Made Nice, which shuttered during the pandemic in 2020 after a four-year run.

Eleven Madison anchors the ground floor of a soaring Art Deco building owned by SL Green Realty Corp. whose main office tenant is the recently collapsed bank Credit Suisse. Also there before abandoning its offices in 2022 was Yelp, the reviews website.

Eleven Madison charges $365 for a 10-course meal, a price that went up by $30 last summer to adjust for the inflated cost of ingredients and higher wages, a spokesman said then. The restaurant closed for 15 months during the pandemic before reopening in 2021 with its new plant-based menu.

Humm is not the first restaurant-industry bigwig to call 40 Fifth’s penthouse home. Before he moved in, the co-op, which is a 76-unit doorman building near Washington Square Park, was owned by Steven Ells, the founder of the chain Chipotle Mexican Grill, records show. Ells initially listed his unit for $18 million in 2019 before unloading it to Humm for $14.5 million in 2021.

In the second quarter, luxury apartments in Manhattan sold for an average price of $8.5 million, down 5% from the $8.9 million average in the year-ago quarter, according to data from the brokerage Douglas Elliman. But average marketing time for the units, which represent the top 10% of the market, quickened to 106 days in the April-to-June period versus 131 days in 2022. 

An interview request sent to the media contact for Eleven Madison was not returned by press time, and Leonard Steinberg, a Compass agent who has marketed Humm’s apartment in the past, had no comment. And Lerner could not immediately be reached.