"2024 Best Baguette In Washington DC"
hosted at La Maison Francaise / French Morning or some shit.
“2024 Best Baguette In Washington DC” hosted by the French Embassy.
Contestants in alphabetical order:
BREAD ALLEY
Well developed crust, airy, uniformly dispersed crumb structure. It's an elegant baguette, you might mistake it for a Breadfurst. Good gluten development and chew, ultimately baked a bit dry and finishes leaving you wanting more salt or sweetness. Their volume here, to serve Le Diplomate, Pastis and the alley brick & mortar, with such finesse is impressive. This baguette would hold its own in a Parisian neighborhood bakery. The harissa boule is heavy handed with its spice in the best way, and will liven up any dinner party.
DOG TAG
First and foremost, their mission and service to the community is peerless. Baguette is not their strength; look to their other offerings.
ELLE
A more tender and chewy crust than its appearance would suggest. Aerated crumb structure, compact holes, not quite lacey. Moisture and density on the higher end. The sourdough tang is aggressive. Big personality. This baguette could horrify the French. I’m here for it. Their olive orange rosemary boule tastes like Provence; stupid good. Worth a detour.
FRESH BAGUETTE
With seven locations now in DMV, and distributing to DC neighborhood suprettes. At their own shops, you’ll see numerous ovens, baking off formed loaves produced in a commissary kitchen somewhere in the region? An interesting model that demands more questions. Cross section looks promising. Blond af bake. Integrity of the crust is correct despite the light color. Heavier than it looks. Decent in most metrics. I would not make a detour for this baguette, but if locally accessible, it's equivalent to a Carrefour supermarket baguette, and better than 90% of what’s on offer in America.
GUSTAVE BOULANGERIE
From the photos tarts and cakes look enticing here, and the cranberry walnut boule was fine. Their proprietor, a warm and convivial Frenchman (previously a GM at Tatte according to linked), regaled guests with bits like how “Mrs. (Usha) JD Vance is one of their best customers!” They have built a thriving small business in Del Rey. I just wish I could better distinguish their baguette from a Trader Joe’s ciabatta-baguette.
MANIFEST
Complex, nutty and rich in flavor; it's immediately evident from its deep color and texture of its cross section.. The emphasis here is on the natural fermented flavor of freshly milled flour, less on the tang of over-fermented yeast cultures. Manifest baguettes are known to max out on char (but less so for tonight's bake); the gains in flavor of going “bien cuit” are not without compromises in texture (often too hard and chewy in the baguette form factor). Worth a detour.
SEYLOU
Their ‘Baguette Payson’ is what you might think of as a pre-industrial bread - made from seasonally available local wheat (often Mennonite farmers), stone milled in house, unfiltered!, fermented with levain, and baked in a wood fired brick oven, so it’s very zero-zero if you will (except there is added yeast in the baguette). From the baker’s and fermentors point of view, what they do using mostly heritage wheat (not the high performance Sir Galahad or Central Milling flours) that has inherently poor gluten strength, with zero extraction of bran/germ/ash is extraordinary. I suspect it involves, in part, extreme levels of hydration and extended autolyse san levain. In appearance/texture/taste, ‘baguette payson’ is only vaguely baguette in its form. Seylou’s breads can be an acquired taste. The extreme hydration necessitates an intense bake, beyond bien cuit, and often the loaves are better the next day, slightly dehydrated, otherwise sliced and toasted to serve sooner. Worth a detour for their pain au levain boule.
Then also get a pain au levain from Manifest, who sources from much of the same wheat farmers, but extracts the flours to some degree depending on the bread, or blends some Central Milling flours depending on the bread, and also stone mills in house, naturally fermented, then baked in modern ovens, then see for yourself who the small interventions and refinements in the process yield.
“2024 Best Baguette In Washington DC” hosted by the French Embassy.
SUNDAY MORNING BAKEHOUSE
Based in North Bethesda, newly expanded to McLean. They make a handsome country sourdough, but from a fairly white flour. Broche was correct. Baguettes are pale in color, dryer than Fresh Baguette. Tastes like a quick ferment, and tad sweet in a good way - like Panera’ baguette but elevated. Viennoiserie and brioche donuts seem to be their calling card; make a detour for those.
JUDGEMENT
“The People’s Choice”: Fresh Baguette.
Hordes of vocal Fresh Baguette stans in the crowd, kinda sus.
“Lafayette Prize” (selected among the contestant bakers): Bread Alley.
“Critic’s Choice - Best Baguette 2024”: Elle. This came as a pleasant surprise to me - it seemed the judges had defied their own French mentalité, and selected the brash/assertive ‘American’ style baguette.
M.Baguette selection: Elle, Bread Alley, Manifest and Fresh Baguette move on to face Bread Furst and A Baked Joint in the quarterly survey.
As for the event itself, the Stellas (not French lolz) were cold and reasonably cheap (1 drink included with admittance). There was perhaps over 500 attendees, and enough cheese and charcuterie offered for about 75? It's not clear what all the ticket sales and drink sales went towards, because the bakeries were provided with no plates nor hydration (how French :), nor any cash prize to the winner, nor compensation for the baked bread!