Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect

Guidara opens the book by recounting the night he attended the 2010 ceremony for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Before the ceremony, he and his business partner, chef Daniel Humm, tried to guess where their restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, would place in the rankings. They were excited and hopeful, guessing that ELM would come in 35th or 40th.

However, they were announced first in the countdown: ELM was 50th—last place. The two men were devastated.

Afterwards, they commiserated, processed their feelings, and talked about what the top restaurants in the world were doing that they weren’t. All the top restaurants were pushing the conversation forward through inventive techniques and artistry, but ELM hadn’t yet done anything innovative.

While the concept of naming the 50 best restaurants in the world can seem a bit ridiculous, the list commemorates “the places that are having the greatest impact on the world at a given moment in time” (3). The rankings mattered immensely to Daniel and Guidara, so after that 2010 awards ceremony, they resolved to turn ELM into a restaurant that would change the industry for the better. That night, Guidara wrote “We will be Number One in the world” on a cocktail napkin (4).