Chef Dominique Crenn’s bold homecoming in Paris

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The opening of Dominique Crenn’s first restaurant in Paris is heralded as a homecoming. Crenn, 58, was born and raised in France, outside Paris, and spent much of his time growing up in Brittany with his adoptive parents. But in the 1980s he went to the United States. As she wrote in 2019: “If I wanted to become an accomplished chef, I had to leave France…as a woman, I couldn’t achieve my goals in France the same way I could in the US.”

Arriving in San Francisco with no culinary training, he opened his modernist restaurant crenn workshop in 2011, followed by the more laid-back Petit Crenn in 2015 and Bar Crenn wine bar in 2018. That same year she broke through all the roofs and became the first, and still only, woman in the US to win three Michelin stars for its flagship restaurant.

Lest this homecoming be seen as a victory lap or vindication, Crenn wants to emphasize: “I am here in humility, not to take anyone’s place.” His arrival in Paris is, he says, for “very personal” reasons. She recently discovered that before she was adopted, at 18 months, she was living in Paris with her biological mother. This discovery coincided with vague memories of her and fueled her desire to return to her. She then she was offered a job running the restaurantrooftop cafe and bar of a lively new hotel on rue Cadet in the 9th arrondissement called The fantasy.

Designed by Martin Brudnizki, the hotel’s interiors are a fanciful cultivation of patterns and colors based on a horticultural theme (rue Cadet is named after the master gardeners of the 16th-century royal court). The ground-floor restaurant, Golden Poppy, resembles a Beatonian sundeck, opening onto a leafy terrace and garden. It’s a fitting backdrop for Crenn’s dining concept: California cuisine showcasing the global flavors that drive West Coast food culture, but using local French produce.

You don’t get Michelin stars by playing it safe

The a la carte offering at Golden Poppy is much more informal than at Atelier Crenn. There, the tasting menus are written as if they were poems. But Crenn hasn’t submitted to the usual demands of hotel breweries, either. No sandwiches. No fries. And no meat (according to their pescatarian credentials). His flair for bold, even challenging, pairings sometimes feels at odds with the club environment. Will Golden Poppy be greeted as a radical breath of fresh air by the It crowd, or will it leave them baffled?

Along with a selection of raw and cured fish and small bites of “California Soul” such as seaweed-infused popcorn, smoked brown butter, and maple syrup, the three entrees on the pre-launch menu that I sample are share plates that she makes yourself. These include a collar and rack of grilled haddock that is filleted onto lettuces before adding kimchi, vinegar puffed rice, and hazelnut miso.

Some dishes are sublime: the whole sea bream, for example, in chewy bao buns covered in sesame and washed down with chutney of fermented carrot and/or XO nori sauce. Other dishes are more confusing. The abalone tacos come with pineapple relish, whipped avocado, and kimchi. The combination looked exciting on paper, a Mexican/Korean “freestyle” to use Crenn’s term, but it failed to ignite in my mouth. But you don’t get Michelin stars by playing it safe.

By the release date, things will have evolved, Crenn tells me: sadly, the bao buns are gone due to problems with the ovens, and the sea bream comes with lettuce instead; haddock is now served as is (“I love cooking my food, but some people want a beautiful fish,” Crenn concedes); it seems likely that the popcorn will move to the rooftop bar.

Fortunately, some winning dishes remain unchanged. Among the starters, the bottarga flan tastes like chawanmushi with a sweet-salty “sea maple syrup” dressing with fish sauce, mirin and bottarga. And the Parker House Rolls arrive with smoked butter dusted with lime zest, raw peppered egg yolk and a dollop of meringue-white koji butter. Caviar is an optional extra. It single-handedly revived my interest in the bread course.

The meal ends with gorditas: Mexican-inspired coconut cream and caramelized pineapple-filled fritters, by pastry chef Juan Contreras. “Californian beignets,” Crenn calls them. What could not be loved?

@ajesh34