Eat and Drink in Marseille

Marseille’s signature dish is the overwhelming bouillabaisse fish stew. It should be tackled at least once – but only if you really, really like fish and are equipped with a stout constitution. Avoid cheap versions. Anything under €30 counts as cheap. Other local dishes are of a similarly sustaining nature: daube, a beef stew in wine; and le grand aioli, which is warm cod flanked by a full floor show of vegetables, shellfish and, of course, garlic mayonnaise.

Being a port city, there is also plenty of foreign influence. Look out for fine food from the Mahgreb, Africa, the Near and Far East and, naturally, from Italy just along the coast. While pretty good at cheeses – notably Banon – Provence is weak on desserts. The navette, Marseille’s traditional sweetmeat, is about as boring as a biscuit can be.

Marseille, where a good meal once meant pizza, bouillabaisse or fish, is suddenly coming on strong as one of the more interesting food cities in France. It is a trend mirrored in the new MuCEM (Musée des civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée), designed by architect Rudy Ricciotti at the entrance to Le Vieux Port. The museum opened to coincide with Marseille's reign as one of this year's European capitals of culture, and its mission is described in its name: to highlight the city's real identity. Of course Marseille is French, but it's also a simmering cauldron of peoples and cuisines from all around the Mediterranean.