Dominique Crenn’s first Australian venue brings morning pastries, lobster tartines and evening apéros to a 40 seat corner of Melbourne’s CBD.
There are several good reasons to visit Petit Crenn. Coffee and a Monforte pastry before work. A croque madame for lunch. A Boulevardier when the working day has finally had enough of you. The new Collins Street opening has plans for quite a few hours of your day.
Opened on Friday 30 October at 495 Collins Street, Petit Crenn is the first Australian venue from Dominique Crenn, the chef behind San Francisco’s Atelier Crenn. In 2018, she became the first female chef in the United States to receive three Michelin stars. Her Melbourne arrival, a partnership with Salter Brothers, takes its inspiration from the comptoirs of Paris and the small French cafés she grew up with.
The idea is easy to get behind: somewhere you can arrive for coffee and find yourself staying for lunch. With just 40 seats, Petit Crenn carries that thought from the first pastry through to dinner.
Head chef Juan Rendón leads the kitchen, arriving after roles across Curtis Stone’s restaurants and collaborations in Los Angeles. Mornings begin with takeaway coffee, sandwiches and a daily changing selection from Monforte Viennoiserie. Bread across the menu comes from Emma and Claudia at local bakery Our Place. A full breakfast menu will follow later, so for now, the early start belongs to coffee and the pastry counter.
From 11.30am, things get a little more involved. There is caviar with savoury madeleines, egg bavarois and pickled shallot, alongside steak tartare with egg yolk jam and sauce au poivre. The croque madame brings jambon, gruyère, Dijon butter and béchamel, a fairly persuasive response to whatever you packed for lunch.
Salads and tartines run through the day, including a Niçoise with tuna, quail egg, haricots verts and olives, and smoked trout on bread with pickled red onion, dill and cream cheese.
Come evening, apéros bring Comté and thyme gougères, house sardines with fennel pollen and preserved lemon, and a croque Landais with duck pastrami, foie gras and tomato vierge. Tartines take a richer turn with rock lobster, uni béarnaise and sauce américaine, or mushroom pâté with black garlic and beef jus. Larger plates include garlic sausage with pommes purée and jus, and baked local fish with smoked trout roe, beurre blanc and sauerkraut.
There is also a reason to develop a regular night. The du jour dishes move from chicken cordon bleu on Tuesday to steak frites on Wednesday, mussels on Thursday, lobster tartine on Friday and French raviole with époisses and beurre blanc on Saturday. Dessert leaves room for tarte Tatin, caramel tart with dark chocolate, chocolate mousse or French vanilla soft serve with salted caramel. Plan accordingly.
Florian Thireau, director of mixology at the Crenn Dining Group, leads the cocktails. The Venice pairs salted Campari with fresh grapefruit juice, while the Amalfi brings together Finocchietto, grapefruit, Cocchi Dry Vermouth and Tanqueray 10. There is a Kir Breton with cassis and pear cider, a Boulevardier, and a Jammy Martini made with seasonal jam, Merlet Triple Sec, lemon and Beefeater gin.
Around 40 wines lean towards France, with Champagne, the Loire, Burgundy, Jura and Rhône represented alongside Australian and New Zealand bottles. Ten are poured by the glass, including Quealy’s orange moscato giallo from the Mornington Peninsula. Cider, La Sirène beer and alcohol free options round things out.
Crenn designed the room with support from the Salter Brothers design team, drawing on her home region of Brittany. Slate blue walls, white timber panelling and a curved navy bar sit beneath a pressed tin ceiling and handblown pendant lights. Stained glass windows look onto Collins Street above café curtains, while the marble bar doubles as the morning pastry display. At the rear, five seats at Le Contour put guests close to the pass.
It is a small room with plenty of ways to work it into your week. Start with a pastry. See where the day goes.
Petit Crenn
495 Collins Street, Melbourne
Tuesday to Friday, 7am to 10pm
Saturday, 11.30am to 10pm
Closed Sunday and Monday
All day menu from 11.30am. Full breakfast menu to follow.
petitcrenn.com.au