For four years, I’ve been living in France’s culinary capital, the city that produced renowned chefs Paul Bocuse and Eugénie Brazier. Many even consider Lyon to be the culinary capital of the world.
Since much of my work involves writing guidebooks and restaurant guides – plus I can never say no to going out to eat – it’s fair to say I know the Rhone city’s dining scene well.
Recently, though, the meals that have left me salivating long after I’ve scraped my plate clean have been in a different French city altogether – one where both the cuisine and the surroundings burst with colour, flavour and character. My vote for the foodiest city in France goes to Marseille.
Marseille is a thriving port city (Photo: Chalffy/Getty)
I can back this up with cold, hard facts. Marseille has two restaurants that have been awarded three Michelin stars, while Lyon has none, for example. But as it’s blasphemous for someone who lives in Lyon to wax this lyrical about another city’s cuisine, you can simply take my word for it.
Among the dishes that have had my tastebuds singing recently was a plate of UFO-shaped saucers of panisse (deep-fried chickpea-flour chips) with tempura courgette flowers and stems, served on a chilled tomato purée. This was on the sunny terrace of Tête d’Ail in Noailles, one of Marseille’s busiest quartiers. Not even the first-rate people-watching could distract me from how good the panisse was: crisp on the outside and smooth as fudge inside.
The second food to induce a reverie was undersold on the menu. The starter was listed as taramasalata and grissini – the kind of thing you’d pick up in the M&S “food to go” aisle. But what a taramasalata it was.
Poissonnerie Kennedy, a former fishmongers in Marseille’s trendy 7th arrondissement, opened this summer. The dip was as thick as pâté, yet velvet-smooth. For an embarrassingly long time, I didn’t know taramasalata was made from fish roe because the taste was so far removed from the base ingredient, but here there was no mistaking it.
Garnished with glossy green olive oil, it was the palest beige – nothing like the artificial-looking pink stuff you’d take to a picnic.
My main dish at the same restaurant was pan-seared swordfish with heirloom tomatoes — delicious, but let me skip straight to the dessert I’d now choose on my deathbed.
This crème caramel was served straight from an enormous metal terrine at the table, decadently creamy and extremely generous in vanilla. Like the rest of the dishes, it was made in an open-plan kitchen that fascinated my partner to the point that he barely addressed a word to me during the meal.
The third meal wowed me with its ingenuity. It was cooked by sunlight, in Europe’s first solar-powered restaurant, Le Présage. The brainchild of Pierre-André Aubert, an aeronautical engineer-turned-restaurateur, has its own herb and vegetable garden and the cooking is done on hotplates powered by enormous solar panels.
I devoured a grilled courgette, tomato and mozzarella salad, and – in an unabashed lack of self-restraint – three starters. When the options are fried aubergine in a tahini sauce with toasted hazelnuts; roasted carrots in sesame oil; and gazpacho the colour of a London bus, how could I choose just one?
Although Lyon also has many wonderful and creative restaurants, the city’s reputation for great gastronomy is due to a little luck and a lot of great timing.
The Michelin guide was first published in 1901 as a motorist’s handbook designed to encourage more people to drive around France – and thus buy more Michelin tyres. Most motorists driving to the French Riviera from Paris did so via Lyon, so it made sense to recommend plenty of restaurants here, and the spotlight therefore fell on Lyonnais bouchons – traditional, offal-heavy restaurants.
Marseille, however, was at this time a thriving port city with busy docks and a diverse migrant population.
These days it means that the city is spoilt for international ingredients. Restaurants serve properly spicy food here (the Holy Grail in France, where hot dishes tend to be toned down to suit the local palate), mountains of fragrant couscous, and any global cuisine you could wish for: Algerian, Lebanese, Taiwanese, you name it.
A Tunisian teahouse in downtown Marseille (Photo: iStock/Getty Images)
As I pick a restaurant for this evening in Lyon, I’m left daydreaming about grilled octopus by candlelight at Ripaille, of the tangy, marinated peppers at Le Plongeon, and the impossibly rich dark chocolate mousse for dessert, which gave me a kick like a double shot of espresso.
Or even the cinnamon rolls at 7VB Café, which are big both in size and in cinnamon content.
Lyon may have the culinary reputation, but Marseille brings more to the table.
How to get there
Take the Eurostar from London to Paris Gare du Nord and an onward TGV (high-speed rail) service from Paris Gare de Lyon to Marseille Saint-Charles (total journey time: roughly seven hours).
Airlines offering flights to Marseille include British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair.
Where to stay
The Grand Hôtel Beauvau Marseille Vieux-Port has doubles from €194, including breakfast.
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