Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Dominique Crenn - Page 2

I've participated at summits where I was the only chef. I was surrounded with thinkers and writers and innovators.

I'm not a saint - I'm not saying that - but I was lucky enough to work with people who believed in me, and I want to honor that until the day I die. I'm still learning and still evolving, though.

Eating is an act of activism for me; it's politics.

Every dish is very connected to my own experiences. Perhaps I go deeper in the description and feeling in the dish than a male chef would. But it's difficult to say.

Food is language. It helped me to open up the conversation on other things.

I'm Dominique Crenn. I'm a chef, entrepreneur, artist, poet, human being. I have three restaurants in San Francisco: Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn and Petit Crenn.

I'm keeping positive; I'm a very positive person.

I'm not trying to be anything other than myself. I appreciate any type of restaurant or cooking, and the main goal is to just be ourselves.

My biggest role models are not chefs, but women like Coco Chanel, Simone de Beauvoir, Nina Simone.

We see the effects of climate change on food prices and in so many other ways.

Cooking is just a vehicle to express yourself, like painting and acting... The reason why we're cooking is not because we want to put something on the plate. It's so much more complex than that.

I just felt very isolated in France, a very bureaucratic place, no space for thinking in a different way, an artist's way.

You're thinking about a dish, you're thinking about an ingredient, and in many ways, you end up becoming a naked chef in front of the customer, because what you put on the plate is you. It's who you are and where you've been.

We need to come up with alternatives to all the plastic wrap and containers that we use in restaurants. It's small things, like having your team bring reusable cups to get their coffees, and consolidating shipments as much as possible.

You have so much responsibility because when you're in the kitchen, it's not just food, it's where the food comes from, what you did with production, what you did it with human interaction, and how you did it with different cultures. Food becomes a mark of activism.

I think women are inclined to look at things with more purpose because of our sensibility. We want things to connect and come together.

My grandmother was kind, but she knew what she wanted and she wasn't afraid to give a command. When, eventually, I ran my own kitchen, I realized I had a leadership model reaching back into my earliest memories.

As a young girl, being a chef did not cross my mind - I wanted to conquer the world. I wanted to play with my brother and the boys. I wanted to be a famous photographer.

Meat's effect on climate change simply cannot be ignored.

There is so much inequality and injustice in America, and COVID-19 has exposed that even more. We have to really understand that this is a wake up call; this is a time of action.

Early in my career, I was told I shouldn't try to work in a kitchen, that I should consider serving or managing instead. It was a sad narrative that was given to me, and it came from a society that didn't know better.

I came to the U.S. in the 1990s. I worked all around, including at Stars, and in 1996, I became the chef of Yoyo Bistro, which used to be Elka. During my one-year tenure there, I met a lot of French chefs at the time.

I never doubted myself when I opened my first restaurant. You've got to give 100% of yourself until you know you've done it. But it was still a struggle.

I think through humor you can get a point across better than through just a dramatic narrative.

I'm not even a just a kitchen cook - everything we do has a purpose, and there's meaning to it.

I always wanted to open a small place.

People ask me how come you say hello to your customers every night? It's because I need that. It's not just a restaurant. It's my house.

I loved school, although I got bored very easily. I liked literature. I loved philosophy. I didn't like math. I was good at English. I didn't like German. I was good at sports and continued to compete on all sorts of teams.

At a very young age, I fell in love with the idea of being in a restaurant and being surrounded with people around me. I don't think at the time I thought about becoming a chef. I have a bachelor's degree in economics. I never went to a cooking school.

I kind of do not like the word chef. Chef, giving you a sense of hierarchy and power. To be a good cook and to be a good leader, it has to come from within and to understand others.

My dad's best friend was a food writer and critic, so I was very lucky to eat in beautiful Michelin-starred restaurants growing up.

When I interview people that want to work with us, I often disregard their resume, because a piece of paper, it doesn't tell me really who they are. I'm looking for honesty, vulnerability. I'm looking for strength, I'm looking for weakness. I'm looking also for someone that wants to learn and is excited about learning.

When you are adopted and you realize that someone gave you a gift, you pay attention to things very clearly. You realize how lucky you are.

I've met a lot of people who were resistant to my ideas, because they were afraid to get into unfamiliar conversations. I didn't listen to them.

I grew up in France, eating the very best pastries.

I was very fortunate to grow up in France with amazing parents who allowed me to understand the importance of activism. My dad was a politician but he was also an activist, and my mom was a beautiful feminist who took care of others.

Food is what I think about constantly. I love the beauty of this planet.

Of all the restaurants I visited in my childhood and adolescence, it was Michel Bras that I remembered most vividly and it was the chef himself to whom, early on in my cooking, I would make the most references. I don't mean that I tried to cook like him. Rather, that I tried to think like him.

My parents believed in the importance of education, but beyond that they were pretty relaxed. My brother and I weren't expected to become lawyers or doctors. As long as we were settled and happy, we could do what we liked.