You Might Also Like: Wayfinder: Life-Changing Travel

**Dominique Crenn** (0:18)
I say food is subjective, but we do it with integrity. We have a voice on the plate, and I think that's important. A chef should always have a voice on the plate.
And when I go to a restaurant, I look at the story of the chef. I'm not here to judge anyone. Someone will cook a burger around the corner, store, or on the street making a burrito. I love that if it's really good.

**Daniel Scheffler** (0:42)
You always tell me how you love a hot dog.

**Dominique Crenn** (0:45)
Oh, the best.
A good hot dog is amazing. Just crunchy, snappy, and then you have the sauerkraut with like that fermentation and the relish, the sweetness is like...

**Daniel Scheffler** (0:58)
It's a perfection.
This is Wayfinder, life-changing travel.
This podcast goes beyond the guidebooks into the heart and soul of real-life travelers as they journey around the world. I'm your host, Daniel Scheffler. On this very special episode, I'm joined by my dear friend, Dominique Crenn, a three-Michelin-star chef and the force behind the restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco. She's also a mother, a storyteller, and one of the most thoughtful people I know. Together, we'll trace the geography of her life, from Brittany to San Francisco, family origins to self-discovery, ancestry to artistry, and explore how every piece of our journey eventually finds its way into who we are and how we love. Bonjour, Dominique.

**Dominique Crenn** (2:28)
Bonjour. How are you?

**Daniel Scheffler** (2:29)
Okay. So let's start from the beginning. Where did your story begin and how does it play a role in your cuisine today?

**Dominique Crenn** (2:37)
Well, I think my story started at birth. I had a journey about six months with my birth mother. She was living on the street and she left me to a babysitter. And then I went to an orphanage in Versailles, and I stayed there until the age of 18 months. And I was adopted by these wonderful people from Brittany, but they were living outside of Paris. My dad was a politician. My mom was doing financial things.
Both of my parents come from farmers. So I was spending a lot of time on the farm, especially with my grandmother on my mother's side. She had a potato farm in Brittany by the sea. And my grandmother was an amazing cook. My mom was a great cook. My dad was the worst cook in the world, but he loved to eat. And his best friend was a big food critic for The Telegram, which is a newspaper in Brittany.
And you know, grew up at home with a lot of beautiful dinners and going to a lot of great restaurant. And just had this love of community around the table, understanding where the food come from and all of this. So in France, it's natural, but never thought about me becoming a chef.

**Daniel Scheffler** (3:51)
What was your travel life like as a child?

**Dominique Crenn** (3:55)
My father and my mother wanted us to learn diversity and to see other culture.
And the reason why, because very young age, they told us that we were adopted. And they say, we don't know really your background and where you come from, but what we know is we love you and we want to make sure that you know when you go out there and people don't look like you or don't eat like you or don't have the same religion, then you doesn't mean they are bad people. They live differently, but they have a common values, which is family and love that we have, and we want you guys to discover this. So a lot of travel, a lot of history, a lot of music, a lot of knowledge that my dad wanted for us to discover.

**Daniel Scheffler** (4:45)
After she finished college with determination for more creativity, Dominique set her compass west.

**Dominique Crenn** (4:54)
I told my dad, I can't be in France. They don't care about creative people. And he said, where do you want to go? I said, I want to go to United States, but not anywhere else than California. And he said, why California? I said, dad, I watch Starkey and Urch on TV.
The wild, wild west, I want to go out there. It's like this sense of freedom out there. So I went to San Francisco, he knew someone. And then I was like, what I'm going to do? Maybe I should cook. And I searched for the most interesting chefs, because I didn't want to go to a French kitchen. I have no interest because I knew how the French kitchen worked.
And I met this man called Jeremiah Tower. And he opened this restaurant called Stars in the 80s. And I think Stars become one of the most progressive American restaurant in the United States. And the reason why is because he had a different philosophy than a lot of chefs. So I wanted to go and work with him, because I did some research, and the guy didn't go to school either. He study architecture. And I'm like, if he can do it, I can do it. So I went to Stars with no appointment, and he was standing up in front of the open kitchen, which was one of the first open kitchen in the United States. And I was just like, hi, knock, knock, knock. How are you? I'm Dominique Crenn, and I would love to speak with you, chef. Nothing.