{"id":68770,"date":"2025-07-17T02:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T02:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/68770\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T02:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T02:41:10","slug":"superstar-chef-dominique-crenn-to-cook-at-oceansides-matsu-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/68770\/","title":{"rendered":"Superstar chef Dominique Crenn to cook at Oceanside\u2019s Matsu \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oceanside chef William Eick still remembers the day last year when he suddenly realized that international culinary superstar Dominique Crenn was following his restaurant\u2019s Instagram page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember I took a screenshot of it and sent it to a friend,\u201d said Eick, who owns Matsu, a 4-year-old contemporary Japanese fine-dining restaurant in South Oceanside.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam Eick is the chef-owner of Matsu, a contemporary Japanese restaurant in Oceanside. (Deanna Sandoval)<\/p>\n

Now, Eick is getting ready to share a kitchen with his culinary idol for a one-night-only collaboration dinner service at Matsu on Oct. 12.<\/p>\n

Eick and Crenn will alternate preparing eight courses for the $475 dinner with staggered reservations from 4 to 9 p.m. that evening. Reservations open Aug. 1 on Opentable.com<\/a> and are expected to sell out quickly.<\/p>\n

Eick, who grew up in the Bay area, has long admired the France-born Crenn, whose Atelier Crenn restaurant in San Francisco earned its third Michelin star in 2018<\/a>. Crenn was the first female chef in the U.S. whose restaurant earned three stars, and Atelier Crenn is one of just three U.S. restaurants to make it into\u00a0The World\u2019s 50 Best list of the top 100 restaurants of 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"DominiqueDominique Crenn, chef-owner of Michelin three star restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, will cook alongside chef-owner William Eick for a dinner Oct. 12 at Eick\u2019s Matsu restaurant in Oceanside. (Atelier Crenn)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d been to dine at Atelier Crenn back in 2016 or 2017 before she got her third star, so I always looked up to her food and I have her cookbook,\u201d Eick said.<\/p>\n

So a few months ago, when he started looking for chefs to cook with him at Matsu for one of his periodic collaboration dinners, he added Crenn to a handful of chefs he sent an invitation via direct message. She was the first to message him back \u2014 just five minutes later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cI sent a message and probably put my phone in pocket then I realized I was getting a text and it was her. I thought, oh wow this is kind of shocking and humbling. It was surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe truffle gougere dish at Dominique Crenn\u2019s Michelin three star restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco. Crenn will collaborate with chef William Eick on a dinner Oct. 12 at Matsu restaurant in Oceanside. (Atelier Crenn)<\/p>\n

Although Crenn\u2019s specialty is French cuisine and Eick cooks Japanese food, they share a dedication to craft, ingenuity, sustainable sourcing and telling stories through their food.<\/p>\n

Eick revisited Atelier Crenn for dinner a few weeks ago to get inspiration for the upcoming collaboration, and he\u2019s now working directly on menu-planning with Sean MacDonald, who is Crenn\u2019s research and development chef. MacDonald, who formerly owned the L.A. restaurants Bar Monette and Burgette, cooked side-by-side with Eick at a past Matsu collaborative dinner.<\/p>\n

Eick grew up in an Asian section of San Jose, where he often cooked for his little brother and their family regularly dined on takeout sushi, Vietnamese food and Dungeness crab. The family moved to Carlsbad when Eick was 15 years old. While training to be an auto mechanic at a local community college, he got a job at a restaurant and discovered his true passion.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam Eick is the executive chef and owner of Matsu restaurant in Oceanside. (Deanna Sandoval)<\/p>\n

Eick started Matsu<\/a> in 2019 as an experimental pop-up, where he served a prix-fixe menu to just one table, one night a week, at an Oceanside bar and grill where he was working at the time as a chef. In October 2021, he opened Matsu restaurant at 626 S. Tremont St in Oceanside.<\/p>\n

Eick said he\u2019s been on a culinary journey with his restaurant and feels he hit his culinary stride in the past year.<\/p>\n

The current menu is telling my story better than ever,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s more true to me than it has been in the past \u2026 We were being overly creative and now we\u2019re a little more familiar and personal. We\u2019re at the top of our game right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA rice and caviar dish at Matsu restaurant in Oceanside. (Deanna Sandoval)<\/p>\n

Some examples of the current dishes that Eick feels best represent him are a Bay Area-inspired lobster chowder course, the locally sourced sheepshead fish from Oceanside harbor that he\u2019s dry-aging in house and serving with a ponzu sauced made with one of his favorite fruits, raspberries.<\/p>\n

The restaurant serves both an a la carte menu and 10-course tasting menu, with optional pairings of Japanese wines and sakes, many of which aren\u2019t sold at any other San Diego County restaurants. Matsu has a Japanese wine dinner coming up on Aug. 12 and on the last Tuesday of each month, it hosts Tsuki nights, with a more casual izakaya pub-style menu. Some of Matsu\u2019s house favorites are a A5 Wagyu cheeseburger and a new locally sourced pork neck dish.<\/p>\n

Matsu is open from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursdays-Mondays. For details, visit eatatmatsu.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t