Dominique Crenn is a French chef who is the only female chef in the United States to have received three Michelin stars for her restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, California. The renowned chef will now be seen in Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend on Netflix on June 15th, demonstrating her skills alongside other Challenger Chefs in the “reimagined Kitchen Stadium, where they’ll face off and be pushed to the limits of endurance and creativity, as they cook up extraordinary culinary creations.” The competition’s most successful Challenger will face off in a spectacular finale for the opportunity to be proclaimed the first Iron Legend.”
All About Dominique Crenn
Dominique Crenn, co-owner, and chef of San Francisco’s three-Michelin-starred Atelier Crenn was adopted at the age of 18 months by a French couple from Versailles. Her mother, who used to take her to Paris restaurants to try Japanese, Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese cuisine, and her political father, who brought her to Michelin-starred restaurants, shaped her culinary sensibilities.
She received a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in international business before making her impact on the French culinary scene. Crenn relocated to San Francisco in the late 1980s to pursue her culinary dreams. She began working at Stars, a well-known restaurant owned by famous chef Jeremiah Tower. Crenn worked at several restaurants such as Yoyo Bistro at the Miyako Hotel, Campton Place, before joining the Intercontinental Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia as the country’s first female head chef. However, owing to civil instability, she was forced to escape the country in 1998.
She returned to the United States and worked as the executive chef at the Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach, California, and subsequently at the Abode Restaurant and Lounge in Santa Monica. After joining Luce in San Francisco in 2008, Iron Chef Crenn received her first Michelin star in 2009 and another in 2010. Crenn addressed Finedining Lovers about why she enjoys becoming a chef:
“I like being a chef because it enables me to be an artist and allows me to communicate with others via food.” The choices are unlimited; you may utilize delectable foods and flavors in whatever combination you like. It just brings me great delight to produce food as art.”
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Restaurants owned by Iron Chef Dominique Crenn
She created Atelier Crenn in January 2011 as “a space to showcase her ancestry, as well as an homage to “poetic culinaria.” In October of 2011, Iron Chef Crenn’s restaurant received its “first Michelin Star within a year.” The restaurant gained its second Michelin star the following year, making Crenn the first female chef in the United States to achieve two stars.
However, in November 2018, Atelier Crenn acquired her third Michelin Star, making her the first female chef in the United States to do so. The James Beard Award winner also has two more restaurants, Petit Crenn, which debuted in 2015, and Bar Crenn, which launched in 2018. In its first year, Bar Crenn won a Michelin star, giving Crenn four Michelin stars. She is also the first Michelin-starred chef to propose offering lab-grown chicken meat developed via a collaboration with Upside Foods “as soon as it is authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration.”
She utilized Petit Crenn to feed the needy in her community during the epidemic. Rebel Chef’s author was diagnosed with breast cancer but is currently on the mend. Crenn also received the World’s 50 Best Icon Award in 2021. Watch Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend on Netflix on Wednesday to discover Crenn’s contemporary vision for exquisite French food.
