Who is Dominique Crenn? All about Netflix's Iron Chef contestant

Iron Chef Dominique Crenn is a French chef and the only female chef in the US to get three Michelin stars for her restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, California.

The renowned chef will now be seen in the Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend on June 15 on Netflix showing her skills along with other Challenger Chefs in the “reimagined Kitchen Stadium, where they’ll face off and be pushed to the limits of endurance and creativity, as they cook up extraordinary culinary creations. The competition’s most successful Challenger will return to battle in a grand finale for the chance to be named the first ever Iron Legend.”

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Details about Iron Chef Dominique Crenn

Dominique Crenn, the co-owner and chef of the three-Michelin-star restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, was adopted at 18 months by a French couple from Versailles.

She developed her culinary tastes due to her mother, who used to take her to Paris restaurants to experience Japanese, Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese food, and her politician father, who took her along to dine at Michelin star restaurants.

To make a mark on the French culinary scene, she earned a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in international business.

Crenn moved to San Francisco in the late 1980s to follow her culinary aspirations. She started working in a prominent restaurant run by celebrity chef Jeremiah Tower called Stars.

Crenn spent two years there, following which she worked at various restaurants such as Yoyo Bistro at the Miyako Hotel, Campton Place, before joining the Intercontinental Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia as Indonesia's first ever female head chef. But she was forced to flee the country in 1998 due to civil unrest.

After returning to the US, she joined as executive chef for the Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach, California, and then at the Abode Restaurant and Lounge in Santa Monica.

In 2009, Iron Chef Crenn was awarded her first Michelin star and another one-star ranking in 2010 after she joined Luce in San Francisco in 2008. Speaking about why she loves being a chef, Crenn told Finedining Lovers:

“I love to be a chef because it allows me to be an artist and it gives me the ability to speak to people using food as the vehicle. The possibilities are endless - you can use delicious ingredients and flavours in any way you please and in any combination. It just gives me such joy to create food as art.”

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About Iron Chef Dominique Crenn's restaurants

In January 2011, she opened Atelier Crenn as "a place to express her heritage, as well as an ode to “poetic culinaria.”

Iron Chef Crenn's restaurant achieved its “first Michelin Star within a year, in October of 2011.” The following year, the eatery received its second Michelin Star, after which Crenn became the first female chef in the US to receive two stars.

But she broke her own record when Atelier Crenn received the third Michelin Star in November 2018, becoming the first female chef in the US to receive three Michelin Stars.

The James Beard award winner also opened two other restaurants - Petit Crenn in 2015 and Bar Crenn in 2018. Bar Crenn received a Michelin star in its first year, earning Crenn four Micheline stars. She is also the first Michelin-starred chef to consider serving lab-grown chicken meat created by a partnership with Upside Foods “as soon as it’s approved by the US Food & Drug Administration.”

During the pandemic, she used Petit Crenn to feed the hungry in her neighborhood. The author of Rebel Chef was diagnosed with breast cancer but is now recovering. Crenn was also the recipient of the World's 50 Best Icon Award in 2021.

Tune in on Wednesday on Netflix to see Crenn’s modern vision for fine French cuisine on Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend.