Casa Crenn: A Culinary Celebration by Dominique Crenn at Montage Los Cabos
Dominique Crenn is possibly the busiest person I’ve ever met. She runs a three-Michelin-starred restaurant and actively advocates for sustainable food practices worldwide. Even when she’s in Cabo to orchestrate the hottest culinary pop-up in North America, she is due back in L.A. to shoot a Master Class, and then back in San Francisco at her world-renowned restaurant Atelier Crenn. To say her time is spoken for and her expertise is in high demand would be an understatement.
And yet, over six nights, the only U.S.-based female chef to garner three Michelin stars cleared her schedule to serve 120 foodies dinner at her own (temporary) Montage Los Cabos home. The partnership between Montage Los Cabos and Dominique Crenn has been in the works since Crenn visited in 2019 to vacation and see an old friend, executive chef of Montage Los Cabos, Xavier Salomon. On that visit, the idea of Casa Crenn was born as a way to celebrate Atelier Crenn’s 10-year anniversary and as an homage to Crenn’s long-time pastry chef, Juan Contreras, who hails from Mexico.
I feasted at Casa Crenn on night three of six, but here’s something I hadn’t quite grasped until I showed up: Montage is home to three restaurants — Casa Crenn is held in none of them. Instead, Dominique Crenn and her team moved into one of Montage Los Cabos’ exquisite casas, Casa Twin Dolphin, to create an unprecedented dining experience: ten courses served in a luxury vacation home. This collaboration showcased the three-Michelin-starred magic of Atelier Crenn, featuring only Mexican-sourced ingredients, served at the tip of Baja California Sur.
This collaboration truly solidifies Cabo’s status as a global food capital, which is long overdue. In the past five years, luxury resorts have honed a reputation for attracting top culinary talent — with Montage leading that charge through a guest chef series launched upon opening in 2019. Meanwhile, San José del Cabo’s emerging food scene grows more impressive each year. Consequently, Dominique Crenn pinpointing Cabo as a temporary satellite campus for Atelier Crenn undoubtedly elevates Cabo’s dining prowess.
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The morning after my ten-course Casa Crenn experience, I rushed back to Casa Twin Dolphin for a brief 20-minute meeting with Dominique Crenn. I traveled from France to New York to Mexico for merely 44 hours in Cabo — all leading up to this quick gathering. Fortunately, my French was well-prepared for meeting both chef Xavier, originally from Savoie, and chef Dominique, who hails from Brittany.
The hallmark of French chefs is not merely their impeccable bearnaise sauce or abundant use of butter; it’s the precision with which they execute each plate that leaves their kitchen. While that precision is evident in dining with chef Dominique, her signature approach to haute cuisine diverges from what one might expect of a French chef in one critical way: she does not serve meat. Atelier Crenn has served exclusively pescatarian fare since 2018, and sister restaurant Petit Crenn has always featured a vegetable-forward, meat-free menu.
Dominique Crenn is meticulous about sourcing ingredients and staunchly opposes factory farming, practicing what she preaches by only consuming meat from known sources.
“I’ve been like this for a long time,” Crenn stated emphatically. Moreover, she leads by example.
“I work with fishermen who own their boats and go out there. I don’t get things from Japan; I don’t do all of that. For me as a chef, I have a responsibility to ensure that I’m doing the right thing,” she explained.
This culinary ethos is apparent in every dish at Casa Crenn. Chef Dominique and chef Xavier scouted local produce and fish, visiting farms near Cabo and fishermen up near Todos Santos. She illuminates when discussing the farm tours and her stringent quality control measures. “It was really cool — I was very impressed,” Crenn mentioned.
Mexico sends some of its best exports to California, and as a member of that community, Crenn adamantly opposes such practices. She is committed to utilizing only local purveyors when sourcing ingredients for Casa Crenn, banning big businesses from her kitchen.
However, her primary motivation for coming down to Cabo to commemorate ten years of Atelier Crenn was to celebrate Mexico. Undoubtedly, her friendship with chef Xavier and the potential partnership with Montage Los Cabos is an exciting benefit. Ultimately, she wanted to celebrate Mexican culture, merging her French training with her team’s love of Mexico and her pastry chef Juan’s Mexican roots.
“We want to celebrate this culture; it’s amazing,” she remarked. Dominique Crenn is someone who takes action based on her thoughtful intentions. She saw the beauty of the property and the idea of cooking not in a restaurant, but in a home resonated with her. Thus, she embraced Montage’s Casa Twin Dolphin as soon as she laid eyes on it. Its success raises a pivotal question: will Casa Crenn return in the future? One can only hope.
