The verdict is in: a bakery in the 11th arrondissement of Paris won the 2024 edition of the best baguette in the capital on Thursday, becoming the new supplier to the Élysée for the coming year. The winner is “Xavier Netry, from the Utopie bakery, in the 11th arrondissement”, 20 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, announced the press service of the Paris town hall.
Anne Hidalgo congratulated the winner on her Instagram account, arranging to “meet” at the bakery to “taste” the famous award-winning baguette. “Everyone is rushing to Utopia,” also rejoiced his first assistant Emmanuel Grégoire, on the X network.
This competition co-organized by the city and the Union of Bakers and Pastry Chefs of Greater Paris aims to evaluate traditional baguettes according to five criteria: cooking, taste, crumb, honeycomb and appearance. A task entrusted to six Parisians chosen at random, an assistant and two professionals.
In their hands, the products presented had to respect certain rules. Namely: a size between 50 and 55 cm, “weigh between 250 and 270 grams and a salt content of 16.8 grams per kilo of flour”.
The baguette “knew how to stand out”
“Of the 173 baguettes placed that same morning, the one proposed by the winner stood out,” greets the town hall in a press release. By winning this award, Xavier Netry becomes the Élysée’s supplier for a year and pockets the sum of 4,000 euros. The prize will be presented to him on May 7, during the bread festival, by Anne Hidalgo.
“Finally proud, I won! », rejoiced the baker in a story on his Instagram account, followed by nearly 5,400 people to whom he regularly shares photos of his bread creations.
He also published last December a photo of himself (left) alongside his team of bakers, Vincent and Christian. The establishment had already obtained another success a few years ago: it had won the 2016 season of the show La Meilleure boulangerie de France on M 6.
L’Utopia succeeds Levain des Pyrénées, in the 20th arrondissement, which won the edition last year. The competition crowned baker Tharshan Selvarajah, 37, who arrived in France from Sri Lanka at the age of 21.
The top list is completed this year by the Maison Doré bakeries (5th arrondissement) in second place, then La Parisienne (7th), Boulangerie Rougès (17th) and L’Écrin gourmand (12th).
