Announcing the Winner of North America’s Sustainable Restaurant Award 2026

Located in the Cow Hollow neighbourhood of San Francisco, California, Atelier Crenn stands out for a demonstrable commitment to environmental stewardship and an intentional application of circular principles within its operations. From a diverse and highly traceable supply chain to its exceptional approach to eliminating waste, the restaurant was the clear winner of the Sustainable Restaurant Award at North America’s 50 Best Restaurants this year.

Read on to learn more about their incredible sustainability work.

Responsible sourcing at Atelier Crenn 

Atelier Crenn has its own regenerative farm in Sonoma County, Bleu Belle Farm, providing the restaurant with local and seasonal fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts and flowers. Impressively for a fine dining restaurant, Atelier Crenn does not serve meat — a single, strong decision that has a positive impact on everything from carbon emissions, water footprint and pollution to land use and biodiversity. Instead, menus focusing on fresh produce and seafood sourced from a supplier who prioritises sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. This includes a wide array of seafood species, supporting greater diversity on the plate and avoiding overfishing of the most commonly-consumed species. 

Atelier Crenn’s approach to social sustainability 

In addition to supplying the kitchen, Bleu Belle Farm is central to Atelier Crenn’s approach to staff health, wellbeing and professional development. The site acts as an available resource to staff for both educational and wellness purposes; those who choose to make day trips to the farm still receive their wage for those days.  

Staff reimbursement programmes are also in place for educational opportunities and wellness, uniform stipends and commuter benefits. Volunteer days are also in place, with the restaurant partnering with the Surfrider Foundation to participate in beach clean-ups.  

How Atelier Crenn manages environmental impact 

The team at Atelier Crenn is taking extraordinary measures to reduce waste as much as possible through their practices, supplier relationships and employee training. Fermentation is used as a smart way to tackle food waste, extend the shelf life of seasonal ingredients and ensure that as much of each ingredient as possible is used and served to guests. They also work in partnership with the Wild Oyster Project, recycling oyster shells back into the San Francisco Bay. Not only does this redirect the shells from landfill, but it also improves water quality and biodiversity and promotes seabed and reef restoration. Any remaining food waste is composted at Bleu Belle Farm, closing the loop on the daily operations of the restaurant. Impressively, Atelier Crenn has also completely removed single-use plastics from the restaurant, becoming the first Certified Plastic Free restaurant in the United States in 2021. 

Our CEO, Juliane Caillouette Noble, said of the win, “We love to see hospitality operations tailoring their sustainability initiatives to their local surroundings. Given their location in San Francisco, it's an impressive decision for Atelier Crenn to serve no meat, focusing instead on fresh produce from their own farm and seafood sourced from a supplier who prioritises sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. Similarly, we loved their partnership with the Wild Oyster Project, recycling oyster shells back into San Francisco Bay to improve water quality and biodiversity. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, they’ve also completely removed single-use plastic from the restaurant, becoming the first Certified Plastic-Free restaurant in the United States in 2021! Well done to the team for this well-considered strategy.” 

Lead photo from Atelier Crenn’s Instagram page. 

Read more about Atelier Crenn on their website. You can learn more about our work with 50 Best here.      

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