(images: Dominique Crenn Facebook)
I don’t know why we are even making this a thing because heck, what does Dominique Crenn’s gender have to do with her capabilities as a chef? Regardless, we are incredibly happy for the French native whose San Francisco restaurant, Atelier Crenn has garnered 3 Michelin stars. While some US media are focused on the stars and what they mean for a chef, others care more about the fact that she is a female.
Headlines like “French chef first woman to earn 3 Michelin stars in the US” , “Dominique Crenn Is The First Woman In America To Earn This High Honor For Chefs and “America Just Got Its First 3-Michelin-Star Female Chef (Finally)” are exactly the kinds of thing that have induced Crenn to eye-roll for so many years.
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She’s been cooking in the USA since the 90s and didn’t even go to cooking school. Atelier Crenn received 2 Michelin stars in 2013 and Crenn was named the World’s Best Female Chef on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2016. An accolade that didn’t sit well with her. She felt that having a separate category for women diminished females even more than the male-dominated industry had done already.
Watch Crenn speaking about this issue in an interview. She says, “Yes, we are physically different but we have a mind and we are on the same level as you are.”
Dominique received the news of her 3rd Michelin star on 29 November and shared the moment on Instagram.
She says, “what a team, the story just begins”.