Noëmie Honiat, from Top chef to Best bakery through her happiness of living in Aveyron

How does this final of the Best Bakery in France work?

It’s the cream of the crop, 24 teams of duos from all over France, with totally different specialties and characters, real artisans, great stories too.

The number of candidates varies depending on the year…

Yes, last year we had 18, this year 24. So we toured for 24 weeks, 240 times with three tastings each time, a thousand in total. The show is a hit. We went from five weeks of filming eleven years ago to 24 today.

Your geographical division is not a function of the current regions but of the old ones, sometimes even divided into two like Midi-Pyrénées north and south. For what ?

These would be far too large areas to cover one in a week and see everyone. Look at Occitanie, it goes from Lot and Aveyron to Nîmes and Montpellier. New Aquitaine is also very large.

You enjoyed your time at Millau, right?

Yes, it’s the duo Sami and Mirvette, a brother and a sister, a very beautiful boutique, a bit of Chabi chic, retro, with beautiful white furniture. They are very well located in Millau. They have everything going for them. From memory, they made us a very good sandwich. For the challenge, they amazed us with a dessert made from pineapple sage.

What did this Tour de France teach you?

I’ve been doing it for two years, we meet real artisans and culinary specialties. I love bringing back little delicatessen souvenirs to show off to my husband, my children, and friends.

Aveyron is your adopted land, the land in fact of your husband, Quentin Bourdy, another former Top Chef candidate. What appeals to you about this department?

I was born in Versailles, I grew up in Toulouse, then I stayed in Nice for ten years. I moved quite a bit. Now, I have been in Aveyron for ten years. It’s a region where we like to live, where we are happy. The people are nice, we have wonderful products. We go to market. There are still grannies who sell some vegetables from their garden. It’s good to live there. We are direct from producer to consumer. For passionate people like my husband and me it’s fantastic to be able to live in a region full of nature, full of trees and wildlife. We offer a very good life to our children.

We also have very good chefs, very good restaurants for all budgets and for all tastes. So we can say that we are late, that we don’t have Uber, no Tesla terminals, but there is something authentic and sincere. I am only from Aveyron by adoption but for nothing in the world I would return to the city. I am very happy there. My children are from Aveyron, they were born in Villefranche-de-Rouergue. My husband is too. It is a region of the heart where I am happy to plant my roots.

By multiplying the weeks of filming, it may be complicated for the children when you are far from home…

I’m not the only mom who has a career on the side and makes sacrifices. It’s sometimes a little complicated but it’s a real passion. The children sometimes come on set with me, they bake, they make cakes, they knead bread, they are with mom in the hotel, we discover France. And then they see their mother happy, they feel it. It will perhaps create vocations: my daughter is six years old, she wants to do the same work as me, make the wedding cakes that I make for my catering business, taste the cakes. They are the children of restaurateurs, they adapt, they are sociable, they open up to the world. They don’t have parents who will work 9-5 behind a desk.

Can grandparents help look after the children?

Quentin’s mother is an opera singer, a teacher at the Paris Drama Conservatory, she can give us a helping hand in the summer. Quentin’s father is a pianist and he lives in Alsace. My mother moved to Aveyron a year ago. Before she moved in, we managed. The children come with us. My daughter was one month old and she was already taking the plane to go to the Best Pastry Chef (she participated in this show as a one-off jury, Editor’s note), I was breastfeeding her. When we were in the kitchen, the basket was on the kitchen station and we sent our service.

Where is the plan to open a restaurant in Saint-Igest by Quentin?

It will open in spring 2025 and it will be called Le repounchou (from the Occitan name of a plant that Quentin Bourdy likes to work with). In Villefranche-de-Rouergue, l’Univers (the hotel-restaurant, inherited from his grandparents, in which Quentin and Noëmie worked for several years, Editor’s note) is being sold and the restaurant Le Jacques said ( opened afterwards, still in Villefranche) will close its doors on August 17. Quentin will launch work on Saint-Igest at that time. Saint-Igest is the table of his dreams, he wants to push his creativity to the limit. These are the lands of his great-great-grandparents who were market gardeners. There is a chestnut grove, a pond, a wood oven.

How is your catering business going?

I do a lot of weddings, from reception to brunch the next day. We will come and create recipes based on small market gardeners and free-range poultry. For dessert everything is possible: it goes from cake design to the wedding cake, to the dessert, to the cake.

Do you and Quentin also work together?

We’re married, so we help each other out, depending on our needs. We worked together for eight years at Univers. During covid, I told him that we were stopping working together, for the good of our relationship. We love each other very much. I was in charge of the restaurant, the filming, the catering, the children… At some point, things no longer fit.

Is it tense when we’re together 24 hours a day?

We know very well that women are more diplomatic than men. Sometimes there are bumps and you have to be together as a couple to be able to work together. Leaving work at home isn’t for everyone.

What would you say Top Chef has brought you?

It made me grow up. It’s the beginning. I experienced an exceptional cooking competition. I had some crazy encounters. In my season (the third, Editor’s note), there was Norbert Tarayre, who is a big brother figure for me. There was Jean Imbert, Juan Arbelaez, Tabata Bonardi… We were a nice vintage. The second season that I was able to do, I discovered Pierre Augé who is a mentor for me. We are forced to push our limits. It shaped me. To finish in the final at 23 was just improbable. I won everything. I gained a husband too, thanks to Top Chef!

How would you describe, twelve years later, your meeting with Quentin?

I did season 3, Quentin season 4. I came to judge the “Restaurant Wars” event in season 4. I wasn’t able to see the candidates. I gave an intermediary three bars of chocolate to the three eliminated because I was giving a demonstration at the chocolate fair the next day. Quentin wrote to me to thank me. I asked him to meet me at the chocolate salon. I would have liked to have been offered it: the elimination is quite violent. He came and we haven’t left each other since.