PETA to Deliver Dead Duck Double Entendre Cake to Eleven Madison Park as Meat Returns to Menu

For Immediate Release:
October 15, 2025

Contact:
Alex Payne 202-483-7382

Today, to mark Eleven Madison Park’s money-grubbing return to featuring animal parts on its menu, PETA supporters will make a special delivery to Chef Daniel Humm: a vegan “UNcongratulations” cake decorated with a dead duck as a reminder of the beautiful birds killed to make the restaurant’s signature “Honey-Lavender Glazed Duck”, and a warning that the restaurant may well become a “dead duck” by abandoning the very thing that put them on the map and had David Beckham raving that it was “pure genius.” Humm revamped the venue’s menu to make it fully vegan in 2021 and has maintained its three Michelin stars since. On August 13, Humm announced that he would resume serving meat as of today.

“As Chef Humm proved for the last four years, vegan food can deliver wonderful flavors, aromas, and luxurious experiences without terrified animals being sent to slaughter,” says PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk. “Luckily, there are well over 100 vegan restaurants in New York that haven’t sold themselves out and we hope everyone will show they choose to let animals live by not eating them.”

PETA points out that ducks are social animals who communicate through body language, vocalizations, and subtle cues like head tilts and tail shakes. Males sometimes spend entire winters courting females with elaborate displays and complex calls, and babies can swim within a day of hatching and often stay close to their mothers. Pigs are soothed by music, cows mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other, and chickens enjoy taking dust baths, roosting in trees, and lying in the sun. In the meat industry, however, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy sheds and slaughtered at just a few weeks or months old.

PETA offers a free vegan starter kit for anyone thinking of making the switch.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.