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Renown chef Daniel Boulud is partnering with SL Green Realty to create a local nonprofit that will help combat hunger and feed frontline workers. Food1st will launch Thursday, with 2,000 dinners delivered to frontline workers staying in midtown hotels. The food is being prepared in Boulud’s Lower East Side test kitchen and funded with a …
Renown chef Daniel Boulud is partnering with SL Green Realty to create a local nonprofit that will help combat hunger and feed frontline workers.
Food1st will launch Thursday, with 2,000 dinners delivered to frontline workers staying in midtown hotels. The food is being prepared in Boulud’s Lower East Side test kitchen and funded with a $1 million donation from SL Green.
“This is all not-for-profit. We are buying the food and paying employees to prepare and deliver the meals,” Boulud said, adding that the meals will work out to around $7 each including raw materials, labor and delivery costs.
“We are trying to solve multiple problems, from a food crisis to getting people back to work,” said Marc Holiday, SL Green’s CEO.
The $1 million seed grant should fund the preparation and delivery of more than 150,000 meals, said Holiday, who hopes other SL Green restaurant tenants will also join in and help “re-activate” restaurant kitchens across the city.
Boulud is opening a restaurant at SL Green’s new skyscraper at One Vanderbilt later this year.
Boulud says Food1st, which will deliver “thousands of meals daily” to first responders, medical personnel, the elderly and New Yorkers in need, will coordinate with other charities like City Harvest and City Meals on Wheels, where he is co-president of the board.
Privately, the chef behind Daniel and DBGB Kitchen & Bar, is contemplating how to reopen his restaurants in a safe and responsible way. “We’re going to have to reinvent our entire social relationship with our staff and our customers,” Boulud said of restaurant life after the quarantines are lifted.
He’s also predicting some changes. “Fine dining will bounce back but it may be a different experience with more value — not always caviar and champagne but always delicious food.”
