While we were in San Francisco visiting family, Jasper and I wanted to have a nice date night to ourselves to try one of the many Michelin rated restaurants. We choose Atelier Crenn, a 2-star restaurant with a seasonal and locally sourced menu written in the form of a poem. Yes, it is a little bit silly and pretentious to present your menu as a poem, but chef/owner Dominique Crenn seems to have some reasons for doing it. Crenn hails from Versailles, France, where her father had a painting workshop (called an “atelier”). She considers her restaurant to be her own artist’s studio (hence the name), with the plate as a blank canvas, and the ingredients as the paint. So perhaps we can consider it to be more artsy than pretentious. And it did provide a fun game to try and figure out what would be in the next course based on the poem.
From the website: “Poetic Culinaria: Atelier Crenn, a painting. An empty white canvas. With tools… a brush, paint and a vision, creativity is given its breath. Here, from this place, the artist can suggest emotion. A lasting moment from childhood… little drawers of heartbeats.”
Crenn seems to be inspired by her childhood and her father, whose paintings decorate the restaurant. Playfulness and nature are the overriding themes of the menu we received, which I have copied below:
Summer has come and is full of sweet surprises
Under the midnight glow, I can taste the sweetness of the sea,
hear mellow serenades of colors licorice and orange
I touch the earth and play
Where the broad ocean leans against the Spanish land,
I remember an oceanic feeling
Here, the earth proffers its juicy, vermilion gifts
and above, the half moon floats, silky and smoky
In its cool, milky light,
the forest still radiant with possibility
Nature rejoice! chasing childhood memories
Feeling the black sand under my toes, I dreamed of
these creatures’ languid movements
Walking deep in the woods, as the earth might have something to spare
bird song, see the water rippling from their visit
a token of the summer
Summer has come, the sea beckons
sweetness, bounty, thanks (more…)
