MICHAEL BRENNER: So
everybody, let's start.
So Dominique asked that
we start with a video.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
MICHAEL BRENNER: So this
week, in the Harvard class
that goes along with this lecture
series is the time that we review things
and we give the students an exam.
And since this is a lecture series, then
it seemed unfair to give you an exam.
But I thought that it
should only be fair if you
feel a little taste of this, as well.
And that's the point of
what I'm going to do.
So just a review.
So this is week number seven.
Time flies.
So week number one, we
talked about food components.
Week number two, we had
Harold McGee and Dave Arnold.
And we talked about energy,
calorimetry, and bonds.
And in particular, and
this will be relevant today
when Dominique shows one of her--
well, speaks about one of her recipes.
So Dave Arnold showed us, and
this is just a picture of him.
He showed it on the stage, here, how
dramatically the texture of an egg
changes when you heat it by just
an extraordinarily small amount.
So from 60 degrees to around 70 degrees.
Every degree, there's a change
in temperature of the egg.
And Dave told us that his favorite
texture was the 64 degree egg.
And for those of you who are
here, you know that-- you laugh.
But you really can tell the difference
between a 63 degree egg and a 65 degree
egg.
And I believe that
Dominique and Chris are
going to show us something
about the 64 degree egg.
See?
And it can't be 63 degrees--
CHRIS BLEIDORN: [INAUDIBLE]
not 65 degrees-- doesn't work.
It has to be 64 degrees, which is,
anyway, one of our messages, here.
So then, the next week, we
talked about phase transitions.
And Joanne told us about sugar.
Then, the next week, we
talked about elasticity.
And there was this wonderful
food truck outside.
And mark told us about
gluten free pasta.
And then, the next week, we talked
about gelation, spherification,
and diffusion.
And Bill Yosses came and made
explosions, for us, of various types.
And then, last week,
we had heat transfer.
And Enric Rovira came.
And he made chocolate on the stage.
And we talked about chocolate.
And that's basically a review.
Now, there was a
version of these slides,
that I neglected to upload on my
computer, in which every week came
with an equation because you'll remember
that every week, we have an equation.
And I was going to make you clap,
mainly to impress Dominique and Chris,
that everyone here claps
when they see an equation.
But the equations didn't
show up in my slides.
So you just have to imagine them.
So if you go look up
how to temper chocolate,
you will find out that you can't just
cool it down, heat it up, and then cool
it down to 31 degrees.
If you do that, it
doesn't work very well.
That's not what's recommended.
And everyone should go home
and contemplate why that is.
I'm not going to tell you right now.
OK.
So instead, I'm going to remind
you about the 64 degree egg.
And I just want to tell you
one thing, as a sneak peak
into Dominique in Chris's lecture,
just as an elemental review.
And then I'm going to
turn it over to them.
So OK.
So it turns out that in the
middle of this lecture--
there are going to be lots
of things in this lecture.
But one of the things that's going
to play a prominent role-- if I
say something wrong, you guys,
at any moment, should yell at me.
This is supposed to be informal.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: I don't
want to yell at you.
SPEAKER 1: Well, you
can tell me to stop.
So one of things that will play
a prominent role in this lecture
is this-- the dehydrator.
How many of you own a dehydrator?
How many of you want
to own a dehydrator?
That's pretty good.
OK.
So dehydrators are
really cool, actually.
And inside of a
dehydrator, there are all
of the physical concepts
that we just talked about,
as a review for this class.
You just have to think about what's
going on inside of the dehydrator.
And Dominique and Chris are going
to show you amazing things that
go on inside of a dehydrator.
But we will get to that in a minute.
So as my sort of silly
warm up to them, I just
wanted to show you a recipe that I
found on the web, for dehydrating meat,
just so you can look at
it and contemplate it.
So this is unsophisticated.
So this is what it says to do.
It says select beef, cut off the
fat, and cut into thin slices.
So you have to cut off the fat.
If you don't cut off the
fat, it doesn't work as well.
And an interesting question-- it's
a scientific question for you all
to contemplate, when I tell
you how this thing works--
is why you have to cut off the fat.
What changes when you cut off the fat?
So then you're told to marinate the
meat and cut it into very thin slices.
You have to cut it into thin slices.
And then what you do is
you dehydrate the meat.
And you dehydrate it at a temperature
of about 170 degrees Fahrenheit, which
is about 50 degrees Celsius.
And you're supposed to do it
between two and six hours.
Now, does the meat cook at a
temperature of 50 degrees Celsius?
No.
It doesn't cook.
It's below the temperature at which
the transitions that cause meat to cook
occur.
And so why do you heat it?
So one of the reasons you heat it
is to evaporate water more quickly.
Another reason you
heat it is that this is
a range of temperatures where
you kill bacteria, which
is good if you're dehydrating meat.
And then what happens is you're supposed
to let it sit for two to six hours.
And the recipe that I
looked at said, well,
we don't really know how long
you should just look at it
and see when it dries out.
Scientifically, though, it's
a very interesting thing,
how long you're supposed to
wait, because what has happen
is that the water in the meat
has to basically evaporate away.
And so this is a question
of, how long does it
take for the water to evaporate away?
And the physical process to
dictate that is called diffusion.
It's the same process that we talked
about, several weeks ago, here.
And just as one simple
thought experiment--
which we could have done
the experiment right now,
but we're not-- to have in front
of you, if you take a coffee
drop, a drop of coffee, and you put
it on the table, and you let it sit,
then what happens is that the
liquid evaporates, and at the end,
you're left with a ring
of coffee around the edge.
And that ring occurs
because of the evaporation,
which leads to very
interesting phenomena, which
I could go on about at length.
But instead, I'm going to stop now.
That's enough.
And I'd like to welcome
Dominique and Chris.
And we're really just so happy you guys
are here to share your ideas with us.
And so let's clap.
[APPLAUSE]
And we're gonna start--
before I turn to them,
I'm gonna start with one more movie.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
DOMINIQUE CRENN: That looks pretty good.
MICHAEL BRENNER: Looks
good to me too, chef.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: I wanna go there.
Well, good evening.
My name is Dominique Crenn.
This is my chef de
cuisine, Chris Bleidorn.
The reason why he's here is not
because he wanted to be here.
It's because he used to live here.
So he wanted to come back
on a free trip to Boston.
Just kidding.
Well, you saw this video.
And so this is what we
do at Atelier Crenn.
So what we're going to talk about
today is a little bit of history
about how Atelier Crenn
came alive, or to friction,
and then kind of the idea about
what Atelier Crenn is about.
It's about, obviously,
understanding taste and flavor,
and also bringing the memories,
this aspect of memories,
into the creativity of the food.
So we opened Atelier Crenn in 2011.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Four years now.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: You were a baby.
The reason why I wanted to open
Atelier Crenn is a lot of reasons.
The number one reason is, in
2009, I almost lost my life.
And I was very close, obviously, to die.
And then I realized
that life is too short,
and you need to really follow your dream
and do those things that you think,
I mean, are good to be done by you
and just maybe to have a platform
to just realize your vision.
And we can go through life
and go to school and work
for a company or whatever, you
know, and just-- and be happy.
But I was not happy.
And I wanted to do something that
had meaning and not just meaning
for me but a meaning for a team
that I wanted to create around it.
And also, it was also-- part of
it was also an homage to my dad
that also taught me so much about
the world and diversity and art
and people and politics and community.
And it's about community.
So in 2011, I opened Atelier Crenn.
And actually, it means
workshop in French.
And Crenn is, I guess, is my last name.
It's also the last time of my dad.
My dad used to be a politician.
But he also used to be a painter.
And he used to have this
workshop called Atelier Crenn.
And when you walk into
the restaurant, you
can see paintings all over the place.
So-- of his artwork.
So the idea was, really,
to open something
like not just a restaurant, a
place where people come together
and try to create something that
is more than just food, you know?
I mean, I'm still a kid.
I'm sure you have kids.
You know?
Right?
And I think, to be able to be--
for me to be able to be creative
and to go through that
creative process, I
need to hire-- needed to hire
people that were also children,
but not children in a sense that
they're not mature-- children in a sense
that the way they think because I
think that kids think with so much
curiosity that it's a very clean
and there's nothing around it.
It's just curiosity.
And it means, also, that, well,
you drive by natural curiosity.
That's why I hired you.
Or it's just because
you're good looking.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Atelier Crenn
has no boundaries on this.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: No prejudice.
We don't have prejudice.
We don't have boundary.
And I think we like to learn new ways.
We didn't want to be put in a
category where you open a restaurant
and you have to do this because
you have to please your guests,
and just in a box, and you just have
to cook whatever else other cooking.
You know?
But there's a lot of great
restaurants that do that.
But this is not what we are about.
It's also about evolution.
So I don't believe in perfection.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: It doesn't exist.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: There you go.
And I think, evolution gives us
a chance to create something.
But when you create, there's
always something else after that.
And it's not just about in food.
It's about the way you think in life.
You know?
I think you can have ideas about things.
But I think it's always
important for you
to just understand your surroundings
and maybe to get other ideas.
And maybe you can grow from it.
So it's also a place where we wanted
to start a dialogue with whoever
wanted to come to Atelier Crenn--
the guests, even the waiter,
even the people in the kitchen.
You know?
I'm always fascinated with the people
that we hire because they are people
and they have minds.
And even if we have a
vision, it's so rewarding
to be able to talk to a new cook and
try to understand where he comes from
and what's his idea about life.
And from that, you can create maybe some
type of memories and dish through that.
So anything can happen at Atelier Crenn.
There's no rules.
We break the rules.
We pay our taxes, though.
That's the only thing that we do.
Well, did I do it?
No.
I still have my 2012s.
I just had the IRS talk--
I mean calling me to death,
like, you didn't pay your taxes.
I'm like, I'm still doing my taxes.
[INAUDIBLE] we break the rules.
Are you guys in the industry, or
you just-- are you other industry?
OK.
So who's in the industry, here?
All right.
And you guys are going to
school for it, or are you
done with school, in a restaurant?
So learning to cook is amazing.
You know?
But when you go to those--
there's an old school
where it's a very narrow-minded
way of looking at things.
And one hand, it's good
to have the basics.
You know?
But on the other hand, how
do you evolve from something
that is very narrow-minded and
you can't grow outside of the box?
And I think, probably 20--
before [INAUDIBLE] came along,
you never see any restaurant
kind of being very creative
and thinking outside of the box.
So I think that cooking is an art.
And people can argue.
I don't know.
Maybe you guys can argue with that.
So it's kind of like getting-- in a
way, you know, like before, it was,
you can have a menu,
and it can go from-- I
don't know-- from winter to summer,
and you still have the same vegetable,
and you still have-- OK.
Well, it's leave it like that.
And I think, we want to push,
also, the boundary of creating
new things because I think,
when you create new things,
you create kind of a legacy.
And from that, you can-- the technical
legacy-- and you can evolve from it.
I, mean [INAUDIBLE] was the first
one that started this class.
And I can tell you how many
cook, or aspiring cook,
just look at him as being just
a master of a lot of things.
It doesn't mean that we
have to like what he did.
But it's kind of opening
you, the way-- your mind.
And it's also giving you the ability
to realize that cooking is not just
cooking, but you have
to think before cooking.
And I think that's quite rewarding.
We are not-- I don't know.
I mean, we're a little bit
cerebral, but we're not academy.
But you guys are like,
obviously, you're here, I mean.
It's a big school.
You know?
But I think we want to talk about
and have a conversation about things
that we think are worth to talk about.
And then with that, also, getting more.
It's not just about food
but getting more involved
with the social economy around
us and see what's going on.
But I'm not going to
be political about it
because obviously, there's a big debate
right now, about the climate change.
And I'm just going to say one thing,
that as far as-- the food industry
is probably the number one food
industry in the United States,
but all over the world, and as
chef, we have the responsibility
to also look at that.
And everything we do, we
need to really be thoughtful.
So I mean, a lot of people look at
a restaurant, and they will think,
it's like, what are they doing?
I mean, what kind of food is that?
There is no steak or fries, or this
is something that we don't understand.
Well, it's kind of
another way of cooking.
And I think what's important
to us is the main thing that
is very important to us is to
understand taste and flavor.
But I think a lot of people
use that word, taste,
because it's been used
in a lot of language
in one way of, like, the words.
It's taste, but it's also flavor.
And it's not.
So it's two different things.
So I think the sense
of taste, like you say,
is triggered by the reaction inside of
your mouth, you know, with your tongue.
And it's one of the senses.
I will say that.
And the flavor is definitely a
combination of odor and taste.
So that's what our basic-- with
Atelier Crenn, when we create a dish,
is the test and flavor
are very, very important.
I'm saying this because a lot of people
categorize our type of restaurant
as being molecular gastronomy cuisine.
I'm not crazy about that term.
But molecular gastronomy
cuisine-- usually,
like, when people use that term,
is oh, they're very innovative
and the taste doesn't taste anything.
And this is not what we are about.
And by the way, molecular-- when
you cook anything, it's molecular.
When you boil some
water, it's molecular.
Right?
It's molecular cooking.
So I just want to put
that in the air, that it's
just I think there is a
misunderstanding about this.
So this is for us.
It's to understand, you know,
also the flavor of pairing.
And then what we want to show you
right now, it's a couple of things
that we're doing at Atelier Crenn.
And it's about transformation.
One is transform a carrot
from a-- to a carrot jerky.
And the next one will be an egg.
Where did the egg come from?
MICHAEL BRENNER: The egg?
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Or was
that a stupid question?
What do you think?
MICHAEL BRENNER: Yeah.
That's good.
Ask them.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: From a chicken.
Where did the egg come from?
And the egg is transformed to an egg
sheet without nothing else, just egg
and pliable and workable.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Which do you want first?
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Do you
wanna do the egg first?
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Sure.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
CHRIS BLEIDORN: This is a
64 degree egg yolk puree.
That's what that is, right there.
So what we do, we cook
those eggs for two hours.
That's how long it takes
to pasteurize them.
And we pass out any
impurities, maybe like whites,
skin around the egg yolk, that film.
Then we create this pure--
basically pure cholesterol.
OK?
That's what it is.
And right now, we're
vacuuming out all of the air.
So once this happens, it
becomes very clear that's
the pretty unique trait about
this, about 64 degree eggs.
The yolk, it actually
cooks very translucent,
which makes it really, really great.
So we've use this technique a
couple times at the restaurant.
On and off, it comes on.
Essentially, it's just an egg,
a nice clear egg yolk sheet.
Sometimes we serve it as pudding.
We garnish several dishes with it.
Here, we take this.
We take the technique a step further.
So it goes into this piping bag.
And what the video's
gonna show next is we're
going to lay this egg yolk very thin.
So we cook it to this temperature
to create this pudding texture.
And it allows us to
spread it really thin.
So if it was cooked hotter,
we would lose the clarity.
And if it was cooked lower,
it would be too runny.
So this just allows us-- we treat
it like putty, almost, inside of it.
So spreading it between
these two pieces of plastic.
So this is part of a recipe.
So we're weighing it out.
So we calculated that maybe, I
think it's 50 grams or 55 grams.
Spreads out to the thickness
of the sheet that we want.
And there, it goes into the plastic bag.
And we're gonna seal it and
take out all of the air.
The air is already taken
out of the egg yolk mixture.
But that's just like to
clear the bag from air.
This is where we roll it.
So this is what really makes
this technique pretty unique.
And it really takes this-- the egg
yolk even further, even further.
So here, we spread it out really thin.
And then, from this point,
we cook it one more time.
So it goes from 64, now, to 72.
So we reset the eggs that
we already denatured.
And it doesn't take long for this to
cook, just about 20, 20 to 30 minutes,
or so.
And you'll see, I can peel
this right off of the plastic.
And from this point, we use
it for many applications.
We've rolled beef in it, which one of
the videos showed a dish, actually.
And we've created pasta noodles.
You know?
We get this nice, clear glass egg
yolk sheet, which tastes great.
It's pliable.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Yeah.
It tastes like egg, yeah.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Yeah.
And basically-- an egg and salt.
OK?
DOMINIQUE CRENN: And
it's gluten free too.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Yeah.
There you go.
There's some gluten free
noodles, right there.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Exactly.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
CHRIS BLEIDORN: So
that's just an example
of where we take certain
ingredients and just bring them
further and try to make something
out of them of what they're not.
[APPLAUSE]
DOMINIQUE CRENN: He's a good speaker.
So let's do the next one, which is--
and I would like to get also the--
CHRIS BLEIDORN: I think
it's also important to talk
about the level of
responsibility we take
at the restaurant about organic sugar.
We even have bio-organic
sugar for the restaurant.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: All right.
So let me tell you a story.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: What
story are you gonna tell?
DOMINIQUE CRENN: So we try and
we are a sustainable restaurant.
But we take this further than that.
So when I hired Chris, and I thought
you were very happy when I told you
that, I say, you know,
it's not just about us
using everything sustainable
and organic and all of that.
But anybody that we are feeding needs
to also eat organic and good food.
And so we go further than that, which is
everything is-- it's basically organic.
So I think we have one of the
best employee meals in the city,
I would say.
And it's very thoughtful.
And what I will do is, I worked in
places where we worked, I don't know,
12, 14, 15 hours.
And then when you go
to the employee meal,
it's just like this
not really good meal,
which, I don't know, kind of
processed and not thoughtful.
And I put this in my body.
And then I go back to work.
So I wanted to really make
sure that the restaurant also
takes care of the employee
because they are part of it.
So if you think-- it's
organic, it's kind of crazy,
and it's cost me a lot of
money, but it's worth it.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: It cost me a
lot of headaches, actually.
When I first got hired, she said,
we're gonna have an organic restaurant,
everything's sustainable-- be really
responsible on top of being innovative.
And I was on board.
I truly believed that too.
And I almost thought it was gonna
be with the meat and the vegetables.
And then I started working.
Maybe a couple of months
into it, all of a sudden,
like, the sugar has to be organic.
And sugar-- organic sugar--
has trace amounts of molasses.
So all of our previous
recipes all had to be changed.
You know?
And of course, I'm the
guy who has to do it.
But I mean, those are the type
of things that it's really
kind of-- we value as important.
And sometimes, it doesn't
get translated to the guest.
You know?
They don't know that
we use organic sugar.
But we feel it's important
to use organic sugar
and just to support
that and that belief.
And throughout the restaurant,
I mean, it's double the price.
Double the price, just
to do that, for something
that is undetectable for the most part.
But that's really, I don't know,
how we feel about our food.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Yeah.
And it's also for us, also,
to just be a part of this,
to be conscious about what we are doing.
It's not just about, like I
said, put food on the plate
but also everything we do.
And it adds meaning.
And I hope I can, when we
finish this dish lecture,
I hope that you can maybe have a sense
of maybe a knack of transformation
with yourself and your surroundings.
And maybe that might maybe help you
to think about maybe doing things
very differently.
The carrot used to be refined sugar.
We don't like refined sugar.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: No.
We don't use it at all.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: So we're gonna show
you how we came up with-- oh, so the way
that we came up with
it is like, I think,
when I interviewed-- what was that?
We were having coffee at [INAUDIBLE].
It's a very good coffee
shop in San Francisco,
if you want to ever
come to San Francisco.
And then we were just thinking
about, so Chris has a great pedigree,
and he has a great background, and
obviously, you're from here, Boston.
And then he worked in Chicago, which
is very much-- I think most of the food
is there's a lot of meat
and things like that.
And then you [INAUDIBLE] which
is a little bit different.
And then he worked at
Benu, in San Francisco.
And then we were thinking about, I
mean, vegetable are the new meat,
for me, personally.
I'm not a vegetarian.
I'm not vegan.
But I just, I think that
vegetables are amazing.
And nobody really cares.
Not a lot of people care about it.
So we were talking about doing a
lot of things about vegetables.
And obviously, I'm not American.
He is.
And then the first thing that came out
of his mouth is, let's make a jerky.
Jerky?
CHRIS BLEIDORN: We
were brainstorming, OK?
DOMINIQUE CRENN: So I'm going on
my iPhone, like, what's a jerky?
I know.
But I didn't grow up with it.
And it's like, at first, I was
like, oh, yeah, vegetable jerky.
Yeah.
Boom.
OK.
So let's try to work on this.
And then so that's how
the carrot came around.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Yeah.
It took about a year.
Still evolves, actually.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Yeah.
It's still-- what it was, a year ago,
what it is now is quite different.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's show the video.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Yeah.
Let's show the video.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
CHRIS BLEIDORN: So that's a
bath of calcium hydroxide.
Basically, it's an alkaline solution.
And we take organic carrots, and we
soak them in there for about two hours.
So the onion process is
nixomol-- nixomolization.
So I use it for masa.
Usually do it to corn to make masa.
This is a salt and sugar mixture.
And just like most jerkies, or
some jerkies, they get cured
or we'll cure meat, fish, just to
basically take out some of the moisture
and then to add seasoning, as well.
So the carrots get packed in this
sugar mixture for three days.
Now, at the restaurant,
we do cases at a time.
This is just a small batch.
And that's what's really interesting.
All of that liquid in there is
from the-- it's from the carrots.
So it draws out so much moisture,
which was really surprising.
First time we did this, we put them
downstairs, in our dry storage area.
And it was wrapped in plastic.
A couple of days later, I went
down there and look at it,
and it was filled up with water.
You know, it just caught me by surprise.
So that's what happens.
The carrots become very
pliable and really denatured
and shrink by half the size, almost.
And also, at that stage,
they taste completely raw.
They're crunchy, which
is also interesting.
So we cook them in a sugar solution,
some spices, things like that,
try to infuse as much
flavor as we can into them.
That's the sugar, right there.
So they get packed in bags.
And then we boil them, I don't
know, three to four hours,
until we try to overcook
them as much as we can.
So when we made this video, this
was, I don't know, maybe a year ago.
Since then, this dish has
actually evolved even further.
So after this stage, or sorry-- before
this stage, we actually brine them.
We make a tea with ginger and orange.
And we rehydrate the carrots with
a brine and then rinse them off
and bag them.
So it's one of those recipes that we've
been working on consistently and making
it better.
So here we have basically cured,
brined, and boiled carrots.
It takes about three days
to get to this point.
And then they go into the
dehydrator for anywhere from,
you know, small ones
will take 30 minutes
and larger ones will dehydrate
for three hours or so.
This is a solution-- a sugar
solution made with cayenne
that we brushed in and glazed them.
So about here, we just
try to basically give it
some of the spicy flavors that
jerky may have traditionally.
And then we wrap it with an orange rind.
So that orange rind has
been cooked and seasoned.
So you can see, right there, that
the carrot has shrunk almost by 60%.
So the result is this really
dense, concentrated carrot flavor
with notes of ginger and orange
and a little bit of spice.
And this is how we serve
it at the restaurant.
We take a branch that's
filled with moss.
That's the natural color
of the moss, by the way.
We always get that question.
And now we serve it right on there.
It looks very natural.
That's sort of the
theme of our restaurant.
And it'll go on the table, just like
that, and you eat it with your hands.
So the result becomes a very
chewy carrot, kind of playful.
Carrot jerky, chef.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Amazing.
The great thing is, like, we've
been doing that for-- this-- for
like, I know, a year.
And every time we look at
the video of the process,
we're just so excited about it.
That's what kind of drive us.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
DOMINIQUE CRENN: So jerky--
jerky is into your memories.
Right?
CHRIS BLEIDORN: Yeah.
I mean, favorite all time snack,
maybe, other than Fruit Rollups.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Fruit Rollups?
Well, maybe we should
do something like that.
What do you think?
CHRIS BLEIDORN: We could.
It's not as interesting as--
DOMINIQUE CRENN: You grew up on jerky.
I grew up on fois gras.
That's amazing.
So memory is also a huge
part of our thinking process.
And I don't know if you know
anything about, Atelier Crenn menu.
I mean, I don't know if anyone
knows about how we do the menu,
but it's-- there is no menu.
There is a poem.
And the poem-- I mean, I've been
writing poetry since the age of four.
I studied writing in French, obviously.
I still have the French accent.
I'm from there.
And then I think it was-- I don't know.
I think it was in the '90s when
I started to dream in English.
Not sure why.
But I did.
And my brain started to change
the way I was writing things.
And I kept myself writing
in English instead
of in French, which is a bit scary.
I don't know if it's scary or not.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: I never heard
of such a thing, actually.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Transformation.
CHRIS BLEIDORN: That's right.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: But I think
that happens when, I think,
when you move to another place.
So I write poetry.
And I write the menu as a poem.
And basically, it changes every season.
And each poem tells a story about
that moment and that season.
And then every line of the poem
is connected to a dish that we do,
actually.
So I would say it's
kind of interpretation
or it's also-- we describe it in a way
that we feel it should be described.
We have a dish called
Walk in the Forest.
And it's a dish about the
memory where a trigger-- I mean,
I used to walk through
the forest with my dad.
And this is where we used to
pick blackberries and mushrooms.
And that was one of the greatest
moments that I spent with him.
And I wanted to recreate
that feeling with this dish.
So when you eat it, it's
just very much the sensation
of walking through a
forest, which means, for me,
the forest means life because
when you walk in the forest,
you have all of the senses.
You have the sweetness, the
bitterness, the acidity of it.
And I thought that's what
I wanted to do with dish.
So that's one of the dishes that do.
What we understood is we are all
different and all unique in our team.
So we come from different backgrounds.
And Atelier Crenn is not just
about the [INAUDIBLE] Crenn.
It's about the people
that work together.
And so the way that we
create dish and story,
it's about coming together and
kind of getting a sense of a story.
One he created is beef tartare.
It's a beef and broccoli, I think.
I never-- I mean, that's
not in my-- I never said,
I used to eat beef and broccoli,
Chinese restaurant, all of the time.
So that's where he kind of, like,
let's do a dish that kind of triggers
those tastes and favors.
And that's--
CHRIS BLEIDORN: You do it in a way
to match the restaurant, though.
DOMINIQUE CRENN: Yeah.
I mean, yes.
Absolutely.
And so that's kind of like,
memories is a very important.
And also, when we bring
those dishes to the table,
we also want to trigger
memory to the customer,
for them to have a deeper
sense of themselves.
And I think, when we created
a dish, or if I eat that dish,
it's going to trigger something in me.
If that customer or that guest eats
it and it triggers something else,
I know that we won because
we are in dialogue with them.
And that's what we're doing.
That's what we want to do.
We want to make food that also
starts a discussion and a dialogue
with the guests and with all of the
texture and the sensation and, I think,
what food is about.
So that's basically what
we're doing at Atelier.
So do you guys have any questions?
We will have more, but--
[APPLAUSE]
MICHAEL BRENNER: It's what we do.
