Eating the $475 MENU at Atelier Crenn – 3 MICHELIN STAR in California, USA

Today, we are starting a brand new journey. In this new series, I travel overseas to visit California’s best restaurants. 5 days, 5 restaurants, each with 3 Michelin stars.
It’s the first restaurant in this series, and it’s called Atelier Crenn. The owner and head chef is one of the most famous women in all of fine dining and was the culinary consultant for the movie The Menu. Dominique Crenn.

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My name is Alexander. I’m the co-owner of a ONE Michelin star restaurant, and I’m on a mission – to find inspiration in gastronomy. I love fine dining, good wine and sharing what I know with other people.

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So far on this channel, you’ve seen me visit 3-Michelin star restaurants all over the world. Today, we are starting a brand new journey. In this new series, I travel overseas to visit California’s best restaurants. 5 days, 5 restaurants. Each with 3 Michelin stars. We will taste amazing dishes, see beautiful places, and meet some of the best chefs – not just in the country, but in the world. I’m super excited. So let’s start from the beginning. I board the plane in Budapest. Less than two hours later, I’m in Zurich to make my connection. There is a bit of delay, so I kill a few hours in the lounge. Then it’s back on the plane. Destination California. Onboard, I change into the comfy pajamas provided and ask for a drink. It’s gonna be a relaxing 10 hours. As we rise above the clouds, our first meal is served. Since this is a gastro channel, let me give you a peek. The camera shake might convince you that I’m a nervous flyer. But it’s just a bit of turbulence. Over Greenland, I’m glued to the window. What a view. There is a two Michelin star place called Koks that relocated there. It’s another one on my list. A good long nap and a few movies and we’re in San Francisco. It’s night time already, so to the hotel we go. The Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco is inside a 1909 Neoclassical landmark right next door to Union Square. It’s a great place to set off for a bit of sightseeing the next day. This time, I brought my godson with me. To celebrate his 18th birthday. We look around, do a few touristy things and find an autonomous car but can’t try it. Then we head to the neighborhood known as Cow Hollow. In the eighteen hundreds it was home to San Francisco’s dairy industry. It’s hard to imagine this was ever farmland. Now, it’s home to the Lucasfilm Campus, The Palace of Fine arts, and of course, our restaurant for today. It’s the first in this 5 part series featuring the best of California. And it’s called Atelier Crenn. We arrive a few minutes early, and they suggest we wait in the bar. Bar Crenn is an offshoot of the restaurant with a Michelin star of its own and a green star too. It’s a gorgeous space with a menu to match. If the restaurant is like this, we’re going to have a great evening. The bar offers a scaled-down version of the restaurant’s tasting menu thanks to a common kitchen. And that’s where we start. With a kitchen tour. The dining room is wood dominant with natural fixtures. It’s cozy, modern and Japanese-inspired. The ultra minimal table setting highlights the stunning walnut table. We are welcomed by an energetic sommelier who brings us up to speed. There are three wine pairings A local one, a young one, and a prestige one. I’m really interested in exploring the wines here in Napa, so I’m going local. My godson will be doing a juice pairing as he is under 21. But just for fun, check out this wine list. It’s one of the nicest designs I’ve ever seen. For champagne, I let the sommelier surprise me. And he does. With a local rose sparkling wine I’ve never tried before. The service team makes a great first impression. Formal and kind, but enthusiastic too. The owner and head chef is one of the most famous women in all of fine dining and was the culinary consultant for the movie The Menu. Her name? Dominique Crenn. Born in France, she moved to the US at the tender age of 21. Although she had no formal culinary education, she got her start in one of the hottest restaurants in San Francisco. Stars. It was a birthplace of California cuisine, and helped produce a long list of big name chefs, including Mario Batali and Chipotle’s Steve Ells. After Stars, Chef Crenn bounced around a few other hot spots in the city before going international as head chef at Intercontinental Hotel in Jakarta. She made waves for becoming the first ever female executive chef in Indonesia and hiring an all-female team. She returned to the bay area for the role of head chef at the San Francisco Intercontinental Hotel where she earned her first Michelin star. She opened Atelier Crenn in 2011 and within a year it had a Michelin star too. The second came one year later, and the third in 2019, making Chef Crenn the first and only female three star chef in the US. The menu unfolds like a poem, where she honors her French roots and pays tribute to California’s best plants, fish and seafood. The plants are from her farm in Sonoma that helped earn Chef Crenn a Green Michelin star. The first bite is inspired by the chef’s childhood in France. It’s a cocoa butter shell with a liquid apple juice center and creme de cassis jelly on top. It comes with instructions and a warning. We should eat it in one go and make sure our lips are closed before it bursts. We also have a taco with all the ingredients grown on their farm in Sonoma county. Rutabaga shell, smoked carrot puree, crispy turnips and egg yolk. And the last appetizer is called Cherry Bomb Pepper. Sweet pepper mousse with fermented stone fruit. It’s dipped in a jelly and topped with rosemary. Good flavors. I loved this one. As we enjoy these creations, we get mail. It’s a nice keepsake. The chef’s favorite seafood is next. It’s oyster belly, lovage in a reduction of white wine and champagne. Frozen with liquid nitrogen. The ingredients are exciting, the plate is beautiful, and I love the thought behind it. Clean-flavored, with very good texture. So far, everything is good. The service is formal yet attentive. They keep an eye on us and carry out their duties like professionals. I am optimistic about this place. Another cool dish. Crab ice cream. With it is a tapioca cracker seasoned with crab miso and spices. and a dashi made from crab. I love the creativity in the utensils and plates. I really liked the idea of the tapioca chips. It’s a very clever solution. Crisp on the outside, green and fresh on the inside, held together with acidity. The crab dashi was really delicious too. The crab ice cream is a cool concept but the idea behind it was more exciting than the flavor itself. Interesting experiment, but I didn’t enjoy the taste. If you enjoy honest reviews of the world’s best restaurants, you’re in the right place. If you haven’t already, hit subscribe so you don’t miss a thing. Coming up, we are going in some new, exciting directions that you will not find anywhere else on YouTube. And we would love to have you on board. Our first wine is a white zinfandel from the Sierra foothills. It’s by producer Forlorn Hope. White Zin has a poor reputation for being the wine people drink when they don’t actually like wine. But this one comes from hand-harvested grapes. The next dish has utensils built in. The leaves. They are made from cauliflower. I love this presentation with the gold foil. Especially how the crispness was incorporated with the gilded leaf. The flavors of the ingredients alone weren’t outstanding, but together they worked well. A decoration arrives to get us thinking about one thing. Beets. In the meantime, the next local wine is poured. It’s a sauvignon blanc from 2021. This is the wine that put producer Matthiasson on the map years ago. It’s clean, fresh and citrusy. Our next course is three preparations of beets. With a ceviche, a cracker and a jelly. The ceviche was a real acid bomb. I loved it. This dish is super elegant as well. The cracker is made with shiso leaf which gives it a beautifully intense flavor. It’s also nice and crunchy. This was the best course so far. The earthy flavor brought by the beetroot was well balanced by the acidity. The servers circle around continuously every few minutes, checking if you need anything. Usually, servers discreetly observe and step in if needed. Here, it’s totally obvious. I find it a bit much. The energy from the service team seems to have dropped a little. An interesting butter knife gets us curious about the next course. Combination of two iconic bay area breads. Sourdough in the middle and dutch crunch crust. Two spreads come with it. Anchovy seaweed dip and instead of butter a walnut miso. It was recommended to save a piece of our bread for the next course. Our server explains it’s an edible arrangement that mimics a seascape. Representing the sand is puffed buckwheat. The sea is broccoli puree. The wave is leeks, clams, truffles and bonito flakes. It’s finished with a broccoli dashi with lemon grass oil. It’s alive! This is the bonito flakes. It’s a Japanese ingredient made from dried, smoked shavings of skipjack tuna. So light that the steam from the dashi makes them waver and curl, as if swayed by an ocean current. The next dish uses the same ingredients in a different way. In the middle is truffle miso with sunflower seeds on top. Each corner has geoduck sashimi, jelly of bonito and cherry vinegar. So far I have loved the presentation, but somehow this one didn’t appeal to me as much. I found the sunflower seeds on top a bit weak. This wasn’t my dish. We are presented with three bottles. On the left is a non-alcoholic drink created by Chef Crenn. It’s called Proxies and it was created for when you want something to drink but you’re not drinking. It’s a blend of wine grapes, fruits, teas, spices, and complex ferments. On the right is the next wine in the pairing. From Liquid Farm, it’s their Santa Rita Chardonnay. This is produced in Los Olivos, a small community in Santa Barbara county. In the middle is something just for us, the server tells us. It’s Szepsy Furmint. Not exactly local here in California but local to me as it’s from the Tokai region in Hungary. Maybe I’m biased, but the Hungarian wine was my favorite of the three. Our next course is in two parts. Chef Crenn believes that a vegetable can stand alone as the star of the show just as well as a protein can. This is white asparagus from Loire in France with a tamari reduction. We also have Spanish mackerel cooked on a yakitori grill finished with tarragon sauce and an orange slice. I was not a huge fan of the fish. For me, It just didn’t have that wow factor. The acidity of the asparagus dish was something I haven’t experienced in a 3 Michelin star restaurant. I never thought I would ever say this in my life, but this one was too acidic. Our next wine is a 2020 pinot noir from Maggy Hawk. 2020 was a really bad year for wineries in Northern California. Do you know why? Wildfires. Over 9000 of them burned more than 4 million acres of land, making 2020 the largest wildfire season in California history. It did over 12 billion dollars in damages. For many winemakers, the fires prevented harvesting of the grapes. Many others ended up with wines that were heavily affected by the smoke. Luckily, Maggy Hawk is made in Anderson Valley and was untouched by the fire and smoke. Also lucky for me, because I enjoyed this wine. It’s one of my favorites of the pairing. The service team is constantly around, checking that everything is in order. One is probably checking the water, another checking the table setting, two others are checking who knows what. This is a reliable way to make sure everything is in order, but for me it was distracting. I prefer it when one server is in tune with my table and watches over us discreetly from a distance. Grilled abalone on a bed of sauerkraut topped with EXO sauce is our main course. The shell is used as a dish for two sauces. A red cabbage puree and a mustard aioli. It’s finished with a sauce made from red cabbage and onion. Great concept and presentation, with good flavors too. Our last wine is a California riesling from producer Tatomer. It’s made the Austrian way with some contact from the grape skins and aged in natural wood. This wine is sweet and bright. A pastry chef brings dessert, plus something we haven’t had in a while. A breath of fresh air. She is bubbling with energy, full of smiles, and we connect right away. She is like a red flower in a snowy field. We have two courses for dessert. Apple spiked with liquor. and the most popular one. A one bite passion pina colada cupcake. Both are fantastic. And the pastries are easily winning the day. Next is papaya, candied peanuts, soy caramel with mango. Last, we have the petit fours with hazelnut, strawberry and pistachio. Each one is excellent. Our total for today, around sixteen hundred USD or fifteen hundred euro. What can I say about Atelier Crenn. The kitchen is very creative, with lots of beautiful dishes. A lot of the flavors, however, were not for me. I loved the desserts and thought the pastry team were great. On the wine side, I thought the pairing was okay. It helped me expand my knowledge about the region. Unfortunately, the service fell short of expectations. It was precise with no mistakes, but the service lacked soul. it was like they were operating from a checklist, and as a result, the service became mechanical. I was happy to see the pastry chef come to the rescue in the end, but at that point, the meal was basically over. They should promote her to service manager. Dominique Crenn wanted to tell a poem with her menu. She succeeded, but her poem did not become my favorite. The next day, a car picks us up, and we are off. To Napa Valley. Not to a restaurant, but to a winery. It’s called Chateau Montelena. We tried their 2014 chardonnay in Singapore when we visited Jaan by Kirk Westaway. It made me curious to try some others. I thought we should check it out. Founded in 1882 by entrepreneur Alfred L. Tubbs who made a fortune during the Gold Rush selling rope. He planted vines, and by 1896 Chateau Montelena was the seventh largest winery in the Napa Valley. It became really famous in 1976 when it won the white wine section of the Judgement of Paris wine competition. You can see a fictional account of the contest in the movie Bottle Shock released in 2008. California wine has a long history, and in the late twentieth century became known for producing some of the world’s finest wine. If California was a country, it would be the fourth largest producer of wine in the world. The credit for the first vineyards go to the Spanish missionaries who needed wine for church. It’s where the name mission grapes comes from. It wasn’t until the California gold rush of 1848 that things really got moving. It brought hordes of people to San Francisco, and the city saw the population boom from one thousand to 25 thousand in just a year. The world really took notice of California wine in 1889 when Inglenook winery took home gold medals from the World’s Fair in Paris. We have a nice chat with a guy from the winery, and then hit the road. We make a quick pit stop at Buster’s for some Texas-style barbeque. It was f#ckin’ good. I hope you don’t think I ONLY eat at Michelin restaurants. Back on the road, I can’t help but stop and get a photo of something truly beautiful. I think it’s a sign.