I haven’t been to Atalier Crenn yet. I have to admit, I’m a little intimidated by Dominique! I don’t know what it is but no matter how often people tell me she’s perfectly lovely, I feel like she’d totally kick my ass. BUT, I still want to eat her food, it looks amazing! We had a last minute trip to San Francisco and I couldn’t get into Atalier but I could get into Petit!
Good thing it’s a casual place because my husband, who’d been in SF for a conference all week, sent his dress shirt and pants to the hotel laundry to be pressed (there was a coupon in the room for a free pressing…why not, right?). Five o’clock rolls around and we still have no shirt back. Call to the front desk, they’ll look into it, blah blah. 5:15 we get a call–a very nervous woman explains that the shirt had a bit of a mishap. It got bleached…ruined really. We can work out the details later but “feel free to get anything from the hotel gift shop.” We tried, it’s all pastel, plaid, Republican golfer wear which we definitely do not fit the bill of so…Well, we don’t need to dress up for Petit Crenn so off we went in a t-shirt. We’ll get back to the laundry in a bit.
The valet gets us a cab but says Hayes Valley is a great neighborhood to live and walk around in. Odd tidbit of info since we’re at a hotel and I’m in heels…Anyway, we grab a cab and get quite the interesting driver who keeps calling Uber Mickey Mouse and Trump Donald Duck. He’s cracking us up. Cab ride and a comedy show.
We make it to the restaurant. It’s cozy and beautiful with an open kitchen which I find always entertaining. The menu is displayed on a chalkboard above our table.
I’d let the restaurant know of my weird food stuffs and nothing was a problem aside from cheese which was easily left off.
First we got a cute little tiered plate of bites: Tuna Crudo. Mussel Escabeche. St. Simon Oyster. Market Crudite. Gougeres. The “Market Crudite” was like if you took leek soup and concentrated it down into a single bite. Those little things are what I love about going out instead of cooking for myself. I am not going to make anything like that! Also the itty bitty savory cream puff. I don’t know about you, but that’s never coming out of my kitchen!
Next up was bouillabaisse with saffron rouille. I didn’t know what rouille is and I still kinda don’t except that it’s like aoili but more like butter. At least in this case. I could have eaten this dish all night but luckily I didn’t because next we had gnocchi with mushrooms. I almost wished it was a cold fall night for this one. It was a cozy up to the fire, stick to your ribs, curl in a blanket dish.
The grilled turbot with charred lemon beurre blanc and sorrel was bright and fresh. Followed by Frisee and Citrus salad. I make greens and citrus salads a lot. They’re my favorite. A little bitter, a little sweet, a little sour…a lot of salt :D
Dessert was just ridiculous. It was a huge slab of ganache! Sure, it was supposed to be for two but it was enough for 6! Sadly, we had to leave a few bites, I just couldn’t power through it no matter how mind-blowing it was.
The wine list was superb. The waitstaff was lovely. It was a really great evening.
Oh, the next day…we got a GIANT credit on our bill because THIS was what the shirt came back like…note: this was originally a dark grey shirt! The pants were just as bad (I don’t have a picture of those), originally black, returned an odd shade of brown with huge bleach spots. Impressive.
Hopefully I’ll be able to post a writeup of Atalier Crenn in the near future. We just have to buy a new shirt first. ;-)