Hyperbole can seem overdone when you’re talking about one of the world’s best restaurants and chefs. Atelier Crenn is 48 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, among three from the Bay Area in the top 50, equal to New York (SF’s Benu and Healdsburg’s SingleThread are the other two). Then there’s Dominique Crenn, a hero on issues from LGBTQI+ empowerment to environmental practices in her restaurants and Bleu Belle Farm in Sonoma.
She’s the only female chef in the U.S. to achieve three Michelin stars. In Belgium in October 2021, I watched her win The World’s 50 Best Global Icon award.
And she is. Though I am (to clarify) the West North America Chairperson (one of three on the continent) for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, both voting and choosing our region’s 40 voters, I hadn’t been back to Atelier Crenn in a few years. Granted, I am out most nights dining everywhere, high to low, and in “normal” times, traveling the world half of every month doing the same.
Though I’ve visited hundreds of fine dining restaurants, sans budgets from any publication, fine dining has to be thoughtfully metered out. But even 10 years ago, during my 5 years at the SF Bay Guardian, I described a dish at Atelier Crenn as, “a treasure found in an enchanted forest, the dish explored both savory and sweet whimsically, a feminine wildness tempered by refinement.”
Including her charming Petit Crenn, which remains closed as a kitchen hub partnering with Rethink and GLIDE to feed the hungry in our community, I have long loved Crenn’s cooking, appreciating her honesty and passion for our city, food, local and global community. She is not “just” a global icon but one of San Francisco’s great ambassadors.
Now that the hyperbole and accolades have been established, we can talk about the food, the restaurant, the experience. On a recent chilly December night, husband Dan and I returned. Not having been back since pre-pandemic brings into stark clarity what seems impossible: a long-superb restaurant can go further, entering stratospheric heights. It will cost you, yes, but this is the splurge meal you hoped for: elegant and forward-thinking, playful and enchanting, multi-layered and sensual, relaxed yet refined, and, above all, deliciously nurturing.
Warm service was apparent the moment we arrived. Having our Lyft drop us off at the wrong address (in their system), then calling an Uber to finally get all the way, we were late, something I’m a stickler about, knowing the burden it is on restaurants. As I entered stressed and apologizing profusely (hey, as a woman, we’re taught to and it’s tough to shake), the staff’s reassurance at the door immediately began stripping the strain of the journey. He placed bubbly in our hands moments later, was complimenting Dan’s clothing (sharp dresser as he is), joking with us both.
By the time I made another round of apologies at our table, another glass was poured and the team confirmed, “You are here now and we’re glad you are. Relax. Enjoy.” Throughout the evening, the tight team of servers exuded the same warmth, and Dominique herself routinely brought her vibrant joy to our table and those around us.
Whether you saw her Season Two Chef’s Table episode or read her new 2021 memoir, Rebel Chef, you know Dominique originally hails from Brittany, France. Touches of Brittany quietly permeate the menu, none more so than a starter of Kir Breton. Normally an apéritif/low proof cocktail variation on a classic Kir or Kir Royale with crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) and white wine, the Breton version subs out wine with dry cider. Here, it’s a liquid bite of lively apple juice encased in a white chocolate cocoa butter shell, accented with creme de cassis gel. Releasing its creamy juices in one bite, it’s welcome as soothing as the staff’s conviviality.
We opted to share one wine pairing and one non-alcoholic pairing so we could sample the drink range. I’m glad we did. The wines leaned towards France, including two White Burgundys (oh, that 2005 Louis Jadot Greves from Beaune 1er Cru!), a mineral-zesty 2018 Cayuse “Edith” Rosé from Walla Walla Valley, a German 2002 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese, and a gorgeous 2020 Kongsgaard Albarino from Napa. We also followed along on the artful poem/book presented on our phones that hinted at each dish in drawings and words.
Famously going pescatarian with all of her SF restaurants in 2019, Dominique’s next few shellfish courses thrill seafood fanatics like me in unexpected forms. Probably the most hideous bivalve in existence, geoduck here is beauty as a tartlet with toasted koshihikari rice. Accents of pineapple gel, citrus mousseline, and local sea urchin, make the little tartlet sing of sea and California winter. All artfully swimming under a glass dome in liquid nitrogen, the dish looks like flowers blooming out of the mist.
Oysters come in two forms, one cool and encased in creamy “skin” with Meyer lemon juice, rosé wine, compressed shallots, and geranium gelée, the other a grilled oyster over pickled tapioca pearls, shiso, and oyster mousseline, an aromatic oyster leaf contributing the crowning hit of briny goodness.
Vadouvan curry-spiced spiny lobster tartare dotted with seaweeds, Mandarin kosho and Asian pear butter wowed as yogurt whey foam is circled around the tartare tableside. An accompanying “shot” of the unwasted lobster shells and head, young ginger, arbol chili tomato broth felt as if it could cure all ills.
I never wanted the seafood to end… until the beet course arrived. This was my favorite of the non-alcoholic drink pairings: Essence of Earth “cocktail,” savory with shiitake mushroom and cypress-smoked tea, bright with cassis, beet and cherry.
Beet ceviche in Peruvian leche de tigre (served inside a little tree trunk), was laced with very rare Mexican chihuacle amarillo peppers, smoked creme fraiche and huckleberry gel. It was summer-y yet earthy, as if a warm breeze had just blown through the space. A meat-like, grilled beet entered ecstasy territory. Dan and I could only emit sounds to evoke our delight.
Fall-into-winter glories continued as a squash course presented the gourd in multiple forms: silky smoked acorn squash tart, leaf-shaped pumpkin seed tuile, kabocha squash dumplings, and butternut squash consomme and lemon verbena brown butter, graced with a fresh shaving of Alba truffles, my favorite of all truffles and one of Italy’s greatest edible pleasures.
Arguably the most beautiful course? Onions & Pearls. As a French onion soup fanatic, it vied for a top course. Burnt bread-onion gel and green onion oil dotting cauliflower ice cream over a dehydrated buckwheat crepe (another Brittany nod), accented by snail roe were already glorious. Surrounded by pickled onion petals, it was art. Accompanied with a shot of uber-carmelized, oniony broth, it was orgasmic.
Thankfully, seafood was back. Though I’ve had abalone hundreds of times — and even judged an abalone cooking competition in Mendocino — I’ve never had abalone this good. Certainly, I’ve eaten plenty of Monterey Bay abalone, but Crenn’s rendition, graced with smoked creme fraiche, parsley oil, pickled mustard seeds, topped with a crisp cabbage leaf, exuded a tender texture I’ve never had even eating abalone at countless fine dining restaurants globally. It’s usually seafood I appreciate but never my favorite. Here, it vied for yet another “top taste.” Ditto a delicate round of trout mousse next to a little pool of oyster bearnaise sauce dotted with trout roe. A non-alcoholic pairing standout was a glass of Proxies Sauvage “wine” with its Sauvignon Blanc grape base, exuding green apple, cedar, spruce, caraway, balanced by acid and tannins. From a brioche and cultured butter-side to a Boho Belle Cheese course between savory and dessert, each bite came with artful presentation and unique plate ware. By this point, we were beyond full but there had to be (and was) room for dessert.
As you may have suspected, dessert isn’t just one course, but three-plus mignardises (bite-sized desserts). Being escorted from the warm, intimate dining room into neighboring Bar Crenn, we were met with a different vibe: romantic, elegant, set to gypsy jazz and 1930s jazz, at a bar lined with vintage dessert wines, ports, and Madeira.
Pastry chef Juan Contreras has been at Atelier Crenn since opening. From his James Beard nominations to his work with esteemed Cacao Berry, Contreras remains one of the nation’s great pastry chefs. Whimsy and a childlike wonder — in keeping with Dominique herself — come through each dessert. Holiday fun defined dishes like cool eucalyptus, apple, pear snowflakes over ice, or “furry” pockets of dragon’s beard and eggnog pavlova marked by sunflower, sesame and a spiced crumble. An adorable mini-“SnowPerson” of yogurt and pine marshmallow has a micro-carrot nose and a scarf of Mountain rose apple, touched with white chocolate cream and hibiscus. We almost felt bad eating the little guy. Sipping 1995 Chateau de Fargues from Bordeaux’s famed Sauternes (where I’ve been privileged to pick grapes during harvest season) and 1984 Blandy’s Verdelho Madeira, all the cares of the world seemed far, far away.
Granted, we have no end of world-class restaurants in our Queen of a food city — with more three Michelin starred restaurants than anywhere in North America, including NYC. It’s my joy to have been to and continue to research at every single one in the Bay Area — not to mention at literally thousands of restaurants around the States and globally.
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But nowhere in the world is there a restaurant comparable to Atelier Crenn, thanks to Dominique and her team. Exactly 11 years old this month, it is a San Francisco treasure.
