Dominique Crenn

“We need to come up with alternatives to all the plastic wrap and containers that we use in restaurants. It's small things, like having your team bring reusable cups to get their coffees, and consolidating shipments as much as possible.”

“I love hi-tech kitchens, but that doesn't necessarily mean full of appliances.”

“Every dish is very connected to my own experiences. Perhaps I go deeper in the description and feeling in the dish than a male chef would. But it's difficult to say.”

“I grew up in France, eating the very best pastries.”

“Anybody that comes in, a new person is supposed to spend six months downstairs in the basement doing prep work. I didn't. I got on the line right away.”

“I usually like simple food when I'm at home.”

“What I want to tell people is, you have to believe your gut. You have to find answers from what your gut is telling you. I always work with intuition.”

“I never doubted myself when I opened my first restaurant. You've got to give 100% of yourself until you know you've done it. But it was still a struggle.”

“We need to get into the community and understand who they are and their needs instead of just giving them something without understanding what they want.”

“Professional kitchens are studied to cook for countless people. At home, design often wins over functionality. A restaurant must be functional.”

“I'm not a saint - I'm not saying that - but I was lucky enough to work with people who believed in me, and I want to honor that until the day I die. I'm still learning and still evolving, though.”

“A restaurant, a small business lives day-by-day. If they're lucky they can make maybe up to 5% profit. That's not a lot.”

“My restaurant is an expression of myself - my fantasies. Where I've been, and where I want to be. I think of my cooking as very emotional.”

“I feel that when you connect something that you do, especially serving food, and connect that together with words - I think it's very important.”

“I think cooks that are just interested in molecular gastronomy are cooks that will never be chefs.”

“For a menu to come together, you have to have sweetness, saltiness, crunchiness... it's all about balance.”

“I'm Dominique Crenn. I'm a chef, entrepreneur, artist, poet, human being. I have three restaurants in San Francisco: Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn and Petit Crenn.”

“At a very young age, I fell in love with the idea of being in a restaurant and being surrounded with people around me. I don't think at the time I thought about becoming a chef. I have a bachelor's degree in economics. I never went to a cooking school.”

“I live in a condo outside of San Francisco, in a town called Larkspur, near a marine area.”

“So, when I was about eight, I told my mother that I wanted to be a chef - and a police man, too. I didn't totally know that was it at the time, but I was very attracted to it from the beginning. I liked the idea of working with people in a kitchen, of dealing with ingredients, all of it.”