Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Dominique Crenn

I want to treat every ingredient in a way that conveys its most pure qualities, but with a little bit of a dreamy twist.

If you are a chef, you have an incredible responsibility in this world. Don't just open a restaurant to serve food. Include the community, and make sure that you are not taking advantage of what the planet has given us.

Like I say, Michelin is Michelin. It's nice people are recognized, but at the end of the day, the star doesn't define you, it's what you do with it, and it's what you do in life in general. I think it helps you with the business, but it doesn't help you as a person.

When I started to work in the kitchen, there's not a lot of women that were working and I didn't try to pay attention to that.

You look at most of these 'best chef' lists, and there are about nine male chefs and one woman chef. The problem is still around.

For a menu to come together, you have to have sweetness, saltiness, crunchiness... it's all about balance.

I have a big mouth. And I'm not afraid to use it.

My mom and dad taught me to never take anything for granted, and to give what you are to your community.

Meat is complicated. We have to be thoughtful about the ecosystem that we're living in and not to destroy it because of the instant gratification and the demand of others.

I try not to spend 10 hours in the kitchen when I cook at home for guests. That's why I try to be really organized and have everything thought out.

I've loved poetry since a very young age and my parents, especially my dad, he really introduced us to art when we were quite young.

It's rubbish for somebody to say that food is not politics.

San Francisco needs to become a city where you have late night offerings.

Everyone should watch 'Supersize Me' to realize how much our physical health is connected to the food we eat.

I'm not a pescatarian, I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm also a conscious person. And I know the impact of the way that we fix meat nowadays is not good. It's killing us, it's killing the planet.

Look, I'm human. Sometimes I'm struggling, sometimes I'm hurting, sometimes I have feelings, sometimes I'm heartbroken. I try to do good in the world even when I'm very sad.

I think cooks that are just interested in molecular gastronomy are cooks that will never be chefs.

I love meals where you have maybe 10 side dishes spread on the table. People get their plate and they can then pick what they want to eat.

In general, cooks like to be in the kitchen and they don't really interact with others.

When I came to America, I saw the inequality right away with the food industry. And I don't really talk about it in the book, but the racism here, it's so predominant and so impregnated in the history of America.

I was sifting through the dier, and I remember thinking: This potato is important. It comes up from the soil and feeds us, it connects us. It is the core of society.

Sustainability is one of my biggest passions. I have two little girls, twins, and I lie awake at night worrying about what the world will look like for them.

My food is about texture and technique.

Being a chef is about feeding people, which is part of the story of all humanity.

In the restaurant business, if you break even, you're lucky. It's a really hard business, it's a survival business.

I don't want people to look at my menu and see just the ingredients. I want to take them on a journey.

I'm French, I know how to cook.

Food, for me, is society, and food is very political. Food is part of culture, and culture relies on art and creativity. If there is no art, there is no food, and there is no city.

Food is politics. You know, we have one planet. And growing food is, you're using the soil of the planet.

I'm most excited about people being more conscious about their eating habits.

As a chef, I've always been very conscious and very thoughtful about the way that I buy food or have my farmers produce it.

I try to craft a menu that is very welcoming. I like to make vegetables and seafood, and I love to make pasta.

I think what we have at Atelier Crenn, which I think is good, is that the basics are very traditional.

I'm talking to a lot of my industry to maybe try to create a guild and coalition where people, when they retire, would get a pension. We pay taxes through the years, we pay for unemployment, but we don't have a pension.

Anybody that comes in, a new person is supposed to spend six months downstairs in the basement doing prep work. I didn't. I got on the line right away.

Obviously, growing up in France, I had foie gras probably when I was two years old. Writing about it and understanding what's going on in the world about it, I think I became more conscious and more thoughtful about things, for sure.

We need to get into the community and understand who they are and their needs instead of just giving them something without understanding what they want.

I feel that when you connect something that you do, especially serving food, and connect that together with words - I think it's very important.

I think I was eight or nine when I had my first long-form tasting menu.

I think Los Angeles is an incredible city. It's also very diverse, which I love about it.

Professional kitchens are studied to cook for countless people. At home, design often wins over functionality. A restaurant must be functional.

I want my legacy to be, wow she was a woman that really cared about others and dedicated her life to make sure that this world was a better world.

I want people to start to think. I always say that: You've got to think before cooking.

Surround yourself with people that really care about not just you, but also the world and the things that you believe in.

You need to be confident. You need to know who you are as a person and as a human. But make sure that you go through the world with humility and respect for others.

What the food industry should be talking about? Climate change. It should be talking about the industrialization of food. It should be talking about how are we gonna feed the kids at school.

When you give someone an award and you tell them that they are the best female chef in the world, you alienate them from their peers.

I live in a condo outside of San Francisco, in a town called Larkspur, near a marine area.

My family, they come from farmers. I used to spend my summers on the farm instead of in the south of France. I loved the hard work and the earth.

I want people to ask me how I feel about the world, or what is my day about, and ask me a question that's not just related to food, but that's related to me being a person: Someone that's vulnerable, someone that has ideas and someone that wants to learn more.

So, when I was about eight, I told my mother that I wanted to be a chef - and a police man, too. I didn't totally know that was it at the time, but I was very attracted to it from the beginning. I liked the idea of working with people in a kitchen, of dealing with ingredients, all of it.

I think sometimes when you go to a space you might like it, but the landlord is expecting something different from you. Our concept is very specific to us, so we need to have the freedom of doing it.

I am just a little fish in the sea. But I do understand that everything that I do could have a little impact.

What I want to tell people is, you have to believe your gut. You have to find answers from what your gut is telling you. I always work with intuition.

I love hi-tech kitchens, but that doesn't necessarily mean full of appliances.

Well, I don't think I'm a chef. I'm just someone that... I found a way of speaking. It was not a pen. It was not a brush. It was food.

My restaurant is an expression of myself - my fantasies. Where I've been, and where I want to be. I think of my cooking as very emotional.

I usually like simple food when I'm at home.

It's funny: not too many people used to think that Brittany was a culinary treasure, but there's such amazing stuff. Beef and pork, of course, but the seafood! The food there is kind of wonderful.

A restaurant, a small business lives day-by-day. If they're lucky they can make maybe up to 5% profit. That's not a lot.