Paris takes its bread seriously. Seriously enough to crown a champion baguette every year since 1994.
This free interactive map plots every single winner of Paris's prestigious Grand Prix de la Baguette, from the very first champion to this year's crown holder. Click through decades of award-winning bakeries, discover which arrondissements dominate the competition, and plan your own bread pilgrimage through the city.
Whether you're plotting your next Paris trip or just dreaming from your kitchen table, this map turns you into a baguette detective with 30 years of champions at your fingertips.
Below, you'll find the story I shared about stumbling into this year's competition and what makes Paris's best baguette so extraordinary.
Finding Paris's Best Baguette Winners
Every year since 1994, Paris has hosted one of its most delicious competitions, the Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française de la Ville de Paris.
The competition is organized by the city of Paris in collaboration with the National Confederation of French Bakers and Pastry Chefs, with the winner receiving €4,000 and the honor of supplying the French presidential residence with baguettes every morning for an entire year.
The competition emerged from a real problem. By the early 1990s, some Paris bakers were cutting corners to keep costs low, using chemicals, preservatives, and cheaper flour to produce baguettes more quickly. This created bread that was "big and puffy and edible for four days," compared to a real traditional artisanal baguette with a shelf life of about five hours.
In 1993, le Décret Pain (the Bread Decree) established rules for what could be labeled a baguette de tradition, requiring it to be made by hand with only flour, water, salt, and yeast, and sold in the place where it's baked. The competition began the following year to celebrate this return to traditional methods.
To enter, baguettes must measure between 55 and 70 centimeters, weigh 250 to 300 grams, and contain exactly 18 grams of salt per kilogram of flour. Judges range from professional bakers and journalists to randomly selected Parisians, and they evaluate entries based on five criteria: quality of the bake, interior texture, flavor, aroma, and appearance.
While there are countless great bakeries throughout Paris, visiting the competition winners offers a fun way to explore different neighborhoods while tasting some officially recognized excellent bread. I've created an interactive Google Map with all the winners since 1994, so you can easily find the closest award-winning baguette to wherever you are in the city.
