France tasted victory for the first time in years in an international cooking competition started by French culinary icon Paul Bocuse and dominated in its early years by French chefs.
The Bocuse d’Or is a biennial live competition before an audience that can sometimes be raucous and reminds some of TVs Iron Chef competitons.
This year’s winner was 29-year-old Paul Marcon, whose father, Regis Macron, won the title 30 years ago. In recent years, Scandinavian chefs have dominated the competition, with only one French chef taking gold in the past ten years. It’s been a sore point that even the U.S., widely derided in French cuisine, has taken more medals overall than France.
Marcon and his team got the nod from the judging panel with a pie filled with deer braised in red wine, foie gras and wild mushrooms, accompanied by celery and followed by apple flavored with French liqueur Chartreuse.
Winning the gold, silver or bronze medals has become a bit of a nationalist frenzy, with results boosting national reputations and marketing, and a number of countries have put serious funding behind their teams, a tack taken this year by the French team, raising funds from public and private donors.
There were entrants from 24 countries in this year’s competition; the Danish team, last year’s gold winner, took second and a Swedish team was third.
Image: French chef Paul Marcon (C) celebrates after winning the 2025 Bocuse d’Or cooking competition