Paris has a new king of the crusty baguette.
Baker Xavier Netry was chosen this week as the 31st winner of Paris’s annual Grand Prix de la baguette prize.
Competing baguettes were evaluated for taste, look, texture, airiness and the quality of the baking.
The Utopie bakery in Paris’s 11th district that Mr Netry works for wins 4,000 euros (£3,427) and becomes one of the suppliers of the presidential Elysee Palace for a year.
Mr Netry, a baker for 25 years, said the secrets of his success are a good sourdough starter and “a good long fermentation”, careful cooking and “some love and some passion, of course”.
