SF Mag critic Josh Sens tends to break out on his own with his reviews, never sounding quite in line with either Bauer nor Kauffman, and that’s usually refreshing. Regarding Atelier Crenn he comes off sounding a touch more generous and positive about the place, without feeling too ecstatic (the star rating: two and a half). He calls the place “Intimate, inventive, by turns impressive and perplexing” (note: Bauer also used the word “perplexing”), and he writes of Crenn, “She’s clearly fired up about her restaurant, passion that comes through in creative bursts that seem nearly too bountiful for one menu alone.” But he calls her out for some technique choices that he disagrees with — sous-vide shrimp, he notes, tends to be mushy, and a slow-cooked duck egg comes out all wrong — and concludes that there’s a bit too much going on, in general. “The sheer volume of high concepts and elaborate executions risks diminishing the drama of each individual dish,” he says, even though he’s impressed with the “wondrous fancy” of Juan Contreras’s Douglas fir dessert as well. [SF Mag]
