Over the past decade, international chefs have swept French culinary competitions with unprecedented frequency.

Travellers wandering through Paris of late may notice that certain boulangeries and charcuteries are plastered with badges designating their baguette or pâté as "le meilleur" (the best). These aren't empty claims. France is home to hundreds of culinary competitions, from the amateur-run AAAAA certification for andouillette to the prestigious Glorieuses de Bresse, whose best-named chicken receives the honour of being served to the French president.

France has long been considered the pinnacle of Western cuisine and is the home of the Michelin guide, so it's perhaps unsurprising that its hosts so many culinary contests. But what's striking is how many of these titles have recently been won by foreigners.

Several months ago, an English fizz became the first non-Champagne to be named the world's top sparkling wine. A few weeks later, an American made history by winning the Mondial du Fromage's Concours du Meilleur Fromager (World's Best Cheesemonger Competition).

In fact, over the past decade international chefs have swept French culinary competitions with unprecedented frequency. The 2024 winner of the Championnat du Monde de Pâté-Croûte (World Championship of Pâté-Croûte) was Japanese Chef Taiki Mano; in 2023, Danish chef Brian Mark Hansen won the prestigious Bocuse d'Or, often dubbed "The Gastronomic Olympics". And many of the most recent winners of Paris' Grand Prix de la Baguette competition have been bakers with non-French roots. According to some experts, this trend shows that despite the rising popularity of global cuisines, the nation retains its storied prestige on the international gastronomic scene.

France has been a culinary hub for centuries, thanks in part to 18th-Century celebrity chefs like Marie-Antoine Carême and Auguste Escoffier, who codified French haute cuisine with military rigour and spread its renown through international courts. Today, French culinary techniques remain "absolutely universal in terms of classic gastronomic cooking", according to Allison Zinder, a culinary educator and gastronomy guide based in Paris. As she put it: "If you know how to cook food with French techniques, you can be a chef anywhere in the world."

This culinary culture extends beyond the kitchen. France's oenological renown was part of what motivated Cherie Spriggs, Head Winemaker at Nyetimber in West Sussex, to enter the International Wine Challenge, which she dubs "the Oscars of the wine world". When her Blanc de Blancs 2016 Magnum was named top sparkling wine this year, it was the first time in the competition's 34-year history that a non-French wine took the trophy. "This is amazing recognition for........

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