The Best Baguettes in Paris
Every year, Paris crowns the best baguettes in Paris in one of the city’s most prestigious culinary competitions: the Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française de la Ville de Paris. The stakes couldn’t be higher. The winning baker receives €4,000, a medal, and the ultimate honor—supplying baguettes to the Élysée Palace and feeding the President of France for an entire year.
2026 Winner: Fournil Didot Claims Victory
On February 26, 2026, baker Sithamparappillai Jegatheepan of FOURNIL DIDOT won the 33rd annual Grand Prix de la Baguette. This is the first win for Fournil Didot, which sits at 103 Rue Didot in the southern 14th arrondissement, just a short walk from the Porte de Vanves flea market.
BEHIND THE SCENES IN 2026
Our tour director and (chief carbohydrate correspondent) Sara Kavelin went behind the scenes this year with travel reporter Natalie Compton from the Washington Post — read Natalie’s excellent story here.
She spotted baker Benjamin Turquier racing in with his baguettes just before the delivery deadline. Turquier has placed in the top 10 many times and has also won prizes for his butter croissant. Both are featured on our North Marais food tour.
143 baguettes were delivered for competition, but 29 were thrown out because they didn’t meet the strict size guidelines for a traditional French baguette (between 55-65cm and 250-300g). Turquier’s baguette was thrown out one year for being too short. I asked him what happened and he said “I guess it was cold that morning.”
The 2026 baguettes were tasted and rated by a panel of sixteen judges. It was mostly bakers – people like Pascal Barillon (past winner and current president of the bakers’ syndicat) Mikaël Reydellet (the 2025 champ), and Antoine Ricard (named France’s Best Young Baker in 2025). A handful of journalists were invited to judge the competition – that’s how I got to do it in 2013 – plus five members of the general public.
There were several judging panels, and each table rated a portion of the total number tasted (214 in 2026). Baguettes were rated on appearance, cooking, crumb/holes, aroma and taste. The highest rated baguettes from each panel were then tasted by all the judges to determine a winner. And they had to work fast because baguettes decline in quality – growing more stale – with each passing minute. Here are the top ten bakeries the judges awarded in 2026:
2026 best baguettes in paris
Winner: Fournil Didot — 103 Rue Didot, 75014
Complete Top 10:
- Fournil Didot — 103 Rue Didot, 75014
- B&S Nation — 24 Place de la Nation, 75012
- L’Ecrin Gourmand — 15 avenue Arnold Netter, 75012
- Maison Daguet — 175 rue de la Convention, 75015
- Maison Bergeron — 112 rue Saint-Dominique, 75007
- Boulangerie Guyot Ferreira — 28 rue Monge, 75005
- Maison Leparq — 6 rue Lourmel, 75015
- Boulangerie Moderne Rabineau— 16 Rue des Fossés Saint-Jacques, 75005
- Aux Délices de Glacière — 90 Boulevard Auguste Blanqui, 75013
- Au Paradis du Gourmand — 156 Rue Raymond Losserand, 75014
Scroll down to see the top ten winners (all 150 of them) from the last 16 years – all mapped!
16 Years of Winners, Mapped
What started as a simple question—where can you find a great baguette in Paris?—became an obsession. We’ve tracked down every top-ten finisher in the Grand Prix competition from 2011 through 2026, documenting more than 160 award-winning bakeries across Paris’ twenty arrondissements. We’ve mapped them all below, creating the most comprehensive guide to Paris’ best baguettes available anywhere.
Mapping the winners this way reveals fascinating trends over time. The 5th arrondissement has emerged as Paris’ baguette powerhouse in recent years, with Boulangerie Guyot Ferreira placing five times since 2020 alone. The 13th arrondissement has shown remarkable consistency, producing champions throughout the entire 16-year period. The 14th arrondissement is now quietly asserting itself as the competition’s dominant neighborhood—Fournil Didot’s 2026 victory is the fourth time a 14th arrondissement bakery has won the Grand Prix, joining Boulangerie 2M (2018), Aux Délices du Palais (2014), and Au Paradis du Gourmand (2013), which returned to the top 10 this year after a 13-year absence. Meanwhile, the 18th arrondissement, which dominated the early years with 11 top-10 finishes between 2011 and 2015, has now been shut out for two consecutive years—a geographic shift that confirms the center of baking excellence has moved from northern Montmartre toward the southern neighborhoods. Some addresses prove irresistible to great bakers: 28 rue Monge has produced award-winning baguettes under two completely different bakeries (La Parisienne in 2010, then Boulangerie Guyot from 2020 onward). And certain bakeries demonstrate astonishing consistency: Aux Délices de Glacière has now placed five times, while La Parisienne has appeared six times across three different locations—a testament to Mickaël Reydellet’s commitment to excellence at scale.
Whether you’re planning your Paris itinerary around championship bread (we understand), looking for the nearest award-winner to your hotel, or simply want to taste what makes a presidential-quality baguette, you’ll find it here. Winners are marked with hearts on the map, and the complete year-by-year rankings appear below.
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