2020 saw two of the best chefs in the world publish their memoirs: Ana Roš of Hiša Franko in Kobarid, Slovenia, and Dominique Crenn of Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, US, whose restaurants achieved the No.38 and No.35 position respectively in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019. Read extracts from the two books as we unravel the common threads in the lives of two previous World’s Best Female Chefs
As two of the world’s most accomplished chefs, Ana Roš and Dominique Crenn have led fascinating and eventful lives, taking in experiences as varied as professional skiing, moving home across continents and adoption, as well as some serious incidents and dark times along the way. While both of their careers culminated in the cooks leading their own kitchens and achieving international recognition, their journeys are markedly different. Get a taste of the books – Sun and Rain by Ana Roš with Kaja Sajovic (Phaidon) and Rebel Chef by Dominique Crenn (Penguin Press) – and learn more about these larger-than-life characters through four extracts that outline what it means to be a chef today.
In search of identity
Chef Crenn was adopted into a French family as a baby and moved to the US at 24, led by a feeling that France wasn’t where she belonged. Roš, on the other hand, grew up in a Slovenian family deeply embedded in their country and land – even Hiša Franko is now located not far from where the chef was born. Despite these differences in upbringing, both chefs feel that their identity – as well as their food philosophy – reflects more than where they were born and their personal history. Crenn fell in love with her grandmother’s farm as a teenager, developing a strong connection to coastal Brittany in northwest France.
“If I were sentimental, I’d say this attraction to Brittany was in my blood, but of course this can’t be the case. Not a single strand of my DNA comes from northwest France. Those bloodlines going back five generations aren’t mine. And yet the land felt so powerful to me that, as a child, even though I knew I was adopted, the only way I was able to express my strength of feeling for the farm was to say it was “in my blood”. What I understand now is that “blood” in this context can be a metaphor simply for that which we hold dearest. Most of us are far too quick to define ourselves in the narrowest terms. How, as a human, did you become you? Did you simply inherit a genetic package from your parents? Are you who you are because of where you were born and how you were raised? I love my parents but I don’t think they made me, just as I don’t think my birth mother was entirely responsible, either. I think we are more than the sum total of our genes and experiences.” (Dominique Crenn, Rebel Chef)
Rebel Chef was published by Penguin Press in June 2020
Although Roš lived in Slovenia for most of her life – with the exception of the years she spent studying international science and diplomacy at the University of Trieste in Italy – she fell in love with travel at a young age. The connection she developed with other parts of the world led her to question her identity, much like Crenn, and to acknowledge the gift that discovering the world can reveal.
“In my eyes, the kitchen is a symbiosis of three elements: the territory, the season and the personality of the chef. And that personality is not only something you inherit; rather, it’s a collage, a patchwork of all our life experiences. Travelling, childhood memories, parents, grandparents, birth, death, love, religion, teachers, friends, schoolmates. . . they are all part of it.
From the age of 16, I’ve been on the road. I started travelling with my parents, I continued travelling as a student and later with Valter. We had a silent agreement that we would always travel, regardless of our financial situation. And we did. Low budget, sometimes practically no budget, backpacking with our now almost-grown children as babies – we never gave up discovering the world. But I have never travelled more than I do today. It is mostly for work; sometimes I get back home exhausted, but always richer in my soul. I often take my children on my working trips. Discovering other cultures – and food – and understanding diversity is the biggest gift you can give to a child.” (Ana Roš, Sun and Rain)
Roš in the Slovenian countryside (image: Suzan Gabrijan)
An unforgettable culinary experience
In almost every chef’s memory, there is a moment of realisation of the true potential of food – an experience that cements in the mind that food is about more than nutrition and that it can be a form of communication, or even art. Roš and Crenn both recall one such moment in their memoirs: for the former, it took place on the train between Fianarantsoa and Manakara in central Madagascar, where she was travelling with her two children, Svit and Eva Klara.
“All the windows were wide open the whole time, and the train was so slow you could have run alongside it. At every station, there were thousands of hands shooting out, offering us the most delicious food you could dream of. And at every station, it was different. Raw crayfish with fruity dressings, crispy chicken feet, sweet and juicy pork ribs, fish fillets in French-style sauces, rice balls, steamed and charcoal grilled corn, lychees in chilli salt, slices of caramelized banana, cold sugary pineapple pieces. . . It was 24 hours of eating, partying, laughing, dancing, eating again and eating again, until finally we started filling up our pockets, thinking of supplies for when the journey ended. During the train ride, a strong monsoon rain came across us, making the train stop and everyone dodge the splashes of rain – but we did not close the windows. At one of the final stations, a huge group of children was waiting for the train to come. It stopped in that village every third day, and it was one of the big moments in the local life. Our friend from that journey, the young French teacher, was standing on the steps of the train and made all those children start singing and dancing the Macarena. Svit and Eva Klara needed some time to overcome their shyness, but they finally joined them, wondering how children in a place without electricity, radio or television could know how to sing and dance along to that song. That picture is one of the most beautiful postcards of my life. Dancing children, happy children.” (Ana Roš, Sun and Rain)
Sun and Rain was published by Phaidon in March 2020
For Crenn, much of her initiation to the magic of food took place in the company of Albert Coquil, a family friend and food critic for a regional newspaper in Brittany. But it was while she was on holiday with her family in southern France as a teenager that she had a chance to eat at Michel Bras, then a Michelin-starred restaurant inside a small hotel that the chef had inherited from his family. Here, she first tasted the gargouillou de jeunes legumes, Bras’ recently invented signature dish – an experience that later influenced her own food philosophy, too.
“It’s not just that the gargouillou used ingredients in a way I had never seen in cooking before, in a direct reflection of the land around the restaurant. Or that it featured touches that would become standard, such as the smear, or the “spoon drag,” the technique of spreading a sauce across a plate. It’s that the gargouillou did something I didn’t know was permitted in fine dining: replacing the traditional meat or cream- heavy dish with stalks, shoots, leaves, and grains in an explosion of color, flavor, and texture. The plate in front of me that evening was like nothing I had ever seen. It was simultaneously as light as a feather and groaning with ingredients. Edible flowers! Vegetables so vibrant they were almost neon! Endive, chickweed, salsify, pink radish, chervil, nasturtium, and Welsh onion. It was mind- boggling to imagine how Bras had managed to assemble all these elements into a unified whole, but they were somehow perfectly balanced, a microcosm of the natural world on the plate.” (Dominique Crenn, Rebel Chef)
Chef Dominique Crenn's Oyster and Rosé
What it means to be a female chef
When Crenn started working in restaurants in the US, women in professional kitchens were a rarity, with most of them taking roles in the pastry section. Although this made the young cook apprehensive, it didn’t stop her from walking up to Chef Jeremiah Towers at Stars in California to ask him for a job – her first in a professional kitchen. In 1997, when Crenn was offered a chance to lead the first all-female kitchen in Jakarta, Indonesia, the opportunity appealed to her at an integral level. But she also found that the challenges she faced were international.
“I was starting to meet and interview young women interested in getting jobs in my kitchen, and the common narrative was the same every time. When I asked a young woman why she wanted the job, she might say, “This is my passion,” before adding hesitantly, “but how can I do it when I have no experience? What if I fail? I’m not qualified for the job you are offering.”
I would tell them my own story of turning up at Stars with no experience and asking for a job, but they would shake their heads and say that in Jakarta women were always in the back of the kitchen, peeling potatoes and missing out on the action. I understood this, of course. And I had sympathy. For women, the landscape in Indonesia was different from that of the United States (although let’s face it, not that different). But I was also there to create opportunity and to teach them you have to reach out and grab things. At some point I just exploded. “Just fucking do it!” I said. “You guys can do it! We can do it together. Let’s be inspired by one another.” It was as big a deal for me as it was for them.” (Dominique Crenn, Rebel Chef)
Crenn in the kitchen at Atelier Crenn (image: Jordan Wise)
Being a female chef doesn’t get easier as the years go by, according to Roš. As a self-taught chef, she didn’t have to climb her way through the brigade hierarchy of a traditional kitchen, but often found herself singled out because of her gender at collaboration dinners and events. Neither Crenn nor Roš ever complained about this, rather facing the challenge head-on with the purpose of making things better for the generations to come. The Slovenian chef recalls a singular experience that took place at Ilija, a seafood restaurant in Tarvisio, Italy, where she was eating with her daughter.
“‘Hey, where do you come from?’ A reddish-haired, very self-confident guy asked us in English. It was obvious he was a golf teacher. ‘Slovenia,’ I replied. ‘Well, Slovenia is big. I had girlfriends in Bled, Portorož and Ljubljana’. He talks only to Eva Klara. I do not exist. ‘Well, we live in Kobarid,’ she says. ‘Really? There is a famous restaurant in Kobarid. Hiša Franko. Have you ever heard of it?’ She looks at him: ‘Yes, Hiša Franko is our house.’ I feel amused. This game looks promising, and Eva Klara speaks excellent English for her age. ‘No, my sweet girl, you don’t understand, I speak about the famous restaurant with a famous female chef, a bit outside of Kobarid.’ Eva Klara gets upset. ‘Franko is my grandfather and Hiša Franko is my home.’ He sighs. ‘And who is the nice lady with you? Your mother?’ She retorts, ‘Yes, she is my mother, and she is the chef you are talking about.’ There was a silence. ‘She cannot be a cook. She looks too blonde, too pretty, too feminine, too much a mother, too much as a woman. . .’ Jesus, I thought, I have lost count of the times that I was in a similar situation to this. ‘Well, you are wrong. My mum is the chef of Hiša Franko.’ The following day, Jo(nathan) dropped into Hiša Franko. He quickly became one of the most regular – and it must be said, critical – customers, and one of the best friends I’ve ever had.” (Ana Roš, Sun and Rain)
Chef Ana Roš's Goat and Crayfish (image: Suzan Gabrijan)
A unique food philosophy
For both Roš and Crenn, the food they cook and the way they lead their kitchens are a culmination of all these life experiences – so it could be said that their memoirs trace the journey that took them there. Love, health crises, family relationships, the connection with the land: all elements find an outlet in their restaurants, inspiring the chefs in their culinary creativity. Roš has found a physical spot that perfectly represents her cooking philosophy: Kolovrat mountain. From here, you can see all the locations where she sources ingredients for Hiša Franko.
“When you stand on the top of that mountain, you understand exactly why I cook the way I cook. You can see where I source my ingredients from, you can grasp why our culture is such a melting pot, you can hear the Slovenian language with the Italian intonation going into the Italian language with the Slovenian intonation, you can taste why the food of the Soča Valley has little to do with traditional Slovenian cuisine, but is so close to that of Valli del Natisone (Nadiške doline), Benečija (Slavia Veneta) and Friuli. Kolovrat is like a huge natural lighthouse overlooking the bay of Trieste. If you look, you can see it all; from the lagoon, Grado, Trieste, Koper and Izola straight to the peninsula of Savudrija in Croatia. On a bright day, if you are lucky, you can see Venice.” (Ana Roš, Sun and Rain)
Dreznica and mount Krn in Slovenia (image: Dan Briski, courtesy of Soča Valley Tourist Board)
In her memoir, Crenn recalls in detail the experience of crafting the first menu for her own restaurant, Atelier Crenn, with her right-hand Juan Contreras. It is a moment that brings the whole book together – past, present and perhaps even future experiences informing the dishes that landed on her first poem-menu.
“As I began to develop the concept for the restaurant, I thought back to those visits with my dad and Albert Coquil to the Michelin- starred restaurants of Brittany and Paris. I thought of my culinary heroes, Olivier Roellinger and Michel Bras. I reflected on how to represent the natural world on the plate and interweave it with my own story. The word “journey” is overused, but that is how I conceived of the dishes that Juan and I started to develop for the inaugural menu. In my head, I went back to the fish market in Port de Douarnenez, hearing la criée, the cries of the fishermen, smelling the sharp smell of salt and fresh fish. I revisited my mother’s kitchen, where I hungrily awaited the homards bleus, the bright blue lobsters that swarm off the coast of Brittany with which my mother would make lobster bisque. I would substitute the blue lobster of Brittany with the fire- engine red of the native lobsters of San Francisco. In place of the cream from my uncle’s cows, I would use bone marrow custard. I would look forward and backward at once.”
Geoduck, sea urchin and citrus dish from Atelier Crenn
For both cooks, writing the denouement of their memoirs was not the end, but merely a new beginning. While we wait to find out how they will keep on making the world a better place through their food and restaurants, reading their books is an essential, informative and deeply inspiring experience.
Sun and Rain with text and recipes by Ana Roš with Kaja Sajovic is published by Phaidon. Photography by Suzan Gabrijan. Click here to buy the book.
Rebel Chef by Dominique Crenn is published by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Dominique Crenn. Click here to buy the book from the US and here to buy the book from the UK and Europe.
Header: Ana Roš and her dish 'Lardo' (images: Suzan Gabrijan); Dominique Crenn (image: Amanda Demme) and a dish from Atelier Crenn
‘50/50 is the new 50’ is a content series created by 50 Best and supported by S.Pellegrino with the shared aim of promoting equality, inclusivity and balance in the hospitality sector and beyond.
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