The best baguette in Paris

You guys. You guys are the best readers a blogger could ask for. You guys are the best friends a girl could ask for. Your funny and heartfelt comments on my last post have made me laugh, cry and brim with new appreciation for our new apartment (tiny though it may be). Most of all, they have encouraged me. I feel fortified by your kind words, mes amis. I’m down but not out. I’m screwing my courage to the sticking place. I still have a few months left in Paris, which amplifies to dog years when it comes to food discoveries. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present: the City of Light’s best baguette.

Last month, Sébastian Mauvieux of the Boulangerie Mauvieux was awarded the prize of “Best Baguette in Paris” in a competition run by the city. A few days after his big win, I met Mauvieux at his shop in the 18th arrondissement, descending to a tiny, cramped, basement laboratoire, which was suffused by the oven’s fierce heat and the scent of yeast.

Mauvieux credited many factors for his win — high-quality ingredients, the dough’s leisurely overnight rise, his own savoir-faire – and he also made sure to acknowledge his apprentice, Roues Ngeht, who hails from Cambodia. Ngeht (pictured left in the photo above) mixed, kneaded, shaped, and formed the winning baguettes, just as he creates every one of the baguettes the boulangerie sells. The result is a golden crusted, honeycomb crumbed beauty, a marvel of crunch and chew.

Read more about the prize of Meilleure Baguette de Paris at the travel blog of the New York Times.

Boulangerie Mauvieux

159 rue Ordener, 18e

tel: 01 42 62 76 70

Closed: Saturday, Sunday