They’re not fueling up on stale PowerBars and fluorescent orange boxed mac ’n’ cheese. On Sunday, 20 members from Make It Nice, the restaurant group that includes top-ranked Eleven Madison Park and the NoMad, will run the New York City Marathon, and they’re eating extra helpings of gourmet fare to prepare for the big race.
Make It Nice chef and co-owner Daniel Humm ran the marathon twice before and thought it would be a great bonding experience for his staff, many of whom have run together for years but never tackled 26.2 miles on city streets.
“There are a lot of similarities between cooking and running for me. I see both as endurance sports that require discipline and drive,” says Humm, who plans to eat pasta pomodoro and “a ton of Eleven Madison Park granola” on Saturday night. “You can’t wake up one day and decide to run a marathon, just like you can’t wake up one day and decide to have a successful restaurant.”
Humm’s executive sous chef at Eleven Madison Park, Brian Lockwood, has a similar fueling plan. He’ll carb load on home-cooked pasta with classic red sauce, ricotta and black pepper, honey-Parmesan garlic bread, salad and a chocolate-chip cookie.
Others plan to eat out. Alex Pfaffenbach, assistant general manager at the NoMad, says he has a “pre-race ritual” of spicy miso ramen at Momofuku Noodle Bar, while Nicolas Mouchel, the NoMad’s former floor manager, will fill up on the yakitori set for lunch at Ootoya Greenwich Village (“Pro tip: You can get your rice refilled if you ask”) and head to Lupa for a hearty pre-marathon dinner of Bucatini All’Amatriciana.
But Ciprian Tecsa, the NoMad’s dining room manager, has the most elaborate plans.
“Since I’m a bowhunter, another way I get my energy up before the race is with an all-day hunting trip on Saturday,” he says. “If the hunt goes well, I’ll be grilling deer tenderloins with mushrooms and vegetables for recovery on Sunday after the race, along with a well-deserved magnum of syrah.”