There are cities you visit for the architecture, cities you visit for the museums, and then there are cities where you quickly realise that the best way to understand the place is to eat your way through it. This is often the story of most of my travels, but unlike with major food behemoths like Paris, Rome or Seville, I had no preconceived ideas about what to eat in Marseille before I got there.
Aside from a little preliminary research and a small Google Maps list before I left, I did much of my food decision-making once I was already on the ground. And honestly? I didn’t eat a bad meal in the whole time I was there.
Over three days, I ate my way from the restaurants of the Vieux-Port to the lively streets of Noailles, discovering along the way that Marseille’s food culture is as diverse as the city itself. There was bouillabaisse, Tunisian cooking, French pastries, a brunch sandwich that seemed to have no concept of moderation, elaborate North African sweets and, finally, a sardine pizza.
It was a delicious introduction to Marseille, and one that made leaving rather difficult.
Day One: Bouillabaisse at the Vieux-Port
My first meal in Marseille had to be bouillabaisse.
There are probably more fashionable ways to begin a trip to the city, but few that feel more appropriate than sitting beside the Vieux-Port with a bowl of Marseille’s most famous dish in front of you. I ate mine at Chez Madie Les Galinettes, down on the waterfront at 138 Quai du Port.
Bouillabaisse is more than just fish soup. It is intensely Mediterranean, traditionally made with local rockfish, and accompanied by rouille, croutons and all the rich, garlicky flavours that make it so much more substantial than the phrase “fish soup” suggests.
The bouillabaisse was rich, warming and deeply flavoured. To fully enjoy the authentic experience of this meal, you are supposed to first rub the raw garlic clove over the bread crouton, then top it with a little shredded cheese and a dollop of rouille (a thick saffron-based sauce) and drop the crouton into the soup for a minute or two to soak up the liquid, before ladling it out to eat. If it seems like too much work: trust me, it’s worth it.
And what a setting in which to eat it. Outside, the Vieux-Port was still busy, boats moving across the water and the evening light beginning to soften the city’s limestone buildings. Inside, there was the comforting feeling that this was exactly how a first evening in Marseille ought to be spent.
Day Two: Delicious Eggs, Cool Coffee Shops and Tunisian Sweet Treats
The next morning, breakfast at our hotel, the Hôtel Amista, was one of those meals that makes getting up early on holiday feel like a very good decision. When I say that the eggs here were some of the most delicious I have ever eaten at a hotel breakfast, I am not exaggerating. Whether fried or poached, they were perfectly seasoned and drizzled with some delicate olive oil.
Plus, the bread and pastries at the breakfast are supplied by Pétrin Couchette, the excellent Marseille bakery and café located just a couple of doors away from the hotel. Pétrin Couchette makes its own long-fermented bread on site and is known for its sourdough, pastries, speciality coffee and sandwiches.
And the location of Amista itself couldn’t have been better for a short stay. The hotel sits in the heart of central Marseille, in the Noailles area and only a short walk from the Vieux-Port and the Canebière. The surrounding streets are full of cafés, shops, markets and the everyday bustle that makes this part of Marseille so atmospheric. It is the sort of location where you can walk out of the hotel with no particular plan and almost immediately find yourself somewhere interesting.
At Razzia, a super cool third-wave coffee shop on Rue Fontange, I ordered what turned out to be an impressively overstuffed chicken Caesar sandwich for lunch.
The sandwich menu here changes pretty much every day, so it’s unlikely you’ll get the exact same filling combination as this one, but needless to say that we had to share this between two of us because it was so large. The coffee was also on-par and it is a perfect place to sit out front on a sunny day and people-watch the inhabitants of the neighbourhood go by.
Despite being over-faced by bread products throughout the day, once evening rolled around I was ready to embrace another side of Marseille’s food culture. I stopped at La Rose de Tunis (the location on Rue Pavilion) and bought a selection of sweet treats. The display cases seemed almost designed to make choosing one thing impossible, so the obvious solution was not to choose and pick a selection of several.
After a day that had begun with French-style pastries and eggs, continued with a chicken Caesar sandwich and ended with Tunisian sweets, I was beginning to appreciate just how many different culinary worlds Marseille manages to accommodate.
Day Three: Kaftaji in Noailles and a Distinctively Mediterranean Pizza
On the third day, I headed to Chez Yassine for lunch.
Located on Rue d’Aubagne, close to Marseille’s Saint-Charles railway station and right in the energetic Noailles area, Chez Yassine was a very different proposition from the restaurants around the Vieux-Port. This was the Marseille of North African flavours, busy streets and food that feels made for sharing.
We ordered two kaftaji plates; one with grilled chicken and the other with spicy sausages.
Kaftaji is a wonderfully distinctive dish. The version we ate came with a unique mixture of fried tomatoes, peppers, pumpkin and eggs, all chopped together with knives until the ingredients became a colourful, rustic mixture. It was served with sliced fried potatoes and a fried pepper.
The two versions gave us a chance to compare the grilled chicken with the spicy sausages, but it was the kaftaji mixture itself that really stood out. The combination of fried vegetables and egg had a richness and depth that made it far more interesting than the description might suggest.
For the final meal of the trip, I returned to another of Marseille’s great culinary traditions: pizza.
Dinner was at Pizzéria Chez Sauveur (a legend on the pizza scene in Marseille), where we shared a sardine pizza and one with goat cheese and honey.
Sardines seemed like the perfect topping for a final Marseille meal. This is, after all, a city whose identity is inseparable from the Mediterranean, and there was something wonderfully simple about ending three days of eating with seafood on pizza.
The pizza brought the trip full circle: from the fish-filled bouillabaisse of the Vieux-Port on my first evening to sardines on pizza on my last.
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