Rebel Chef

Book excerpt: “Dominique Crenn is a hero to so many of us, both inside and out of the restaurant industry. She has unlimited courage to always follow her own path, to carve her own way in the world. This book, and Dominique’s whole life, show that everything and anything is possible if you believe in yourself and you keep pushing forward, always forward.” —José Andrés The inspiring and deeply personal memoir from highly acclaimed chef Dominique Crenn When Dominique Crenn decided to become a chef, she knew it was a near impossible dream in France where almost all restaurant kitchens were run by men. She left her home and everything she knew to move to San Francisco, and almost thirty years later was awarded three Michelin stars in 2018 for her influential restaurant Atelier Crenn, the first female chef in the United States to receive this honor—no small feat for someone who hadn’t been formally trained. In Rebel Chef, Crenn tells of her untraditional coming-of-age as a chef. Adopted as a toddler, she didn’t resemble her parents, and was haunted by a past she knew nothing about. But after years of working to fill this blank space, Crenn embraced the power her history gave her to be whoever she wants to be. In this disarmingly honest look at one woman’s evolution from a daring young chef to a respected activist, Crenn reflects on the years she spent working in the male-centric world of professional kitchens and tracks her career from struggling cook to running one of the world’s most celebrated restaurants. At once a tale of personal discovery and a tribute to unrelenting determination, Rebel Chef is the story of one woman making a place for herself in the kitchen, and in the world.