The nouvelle vague of Marseille restaurants

In Marseille, the heart of the Mediterranean, food has always jumped off the plate and into the culture. Here, the rituals of North and West African, Corsican, Italian and Spanish dishes meet in a heaving port town on the cragged edges of wine-soaked Provence. It is a region where the air may be filled with the perfume of fresh produce, but in the city, dishes are paired with blasting car horns and mirage-like heat waves rising up from the concrete.

In recent years, a new wave of gastronomy has appeared here. Chefs and restaurateurs, around 30 years of age, are opening spots that not only appeal to the social media-obsessed hordes from across Europe and the United States but also to those who call Marseille home. 

Here are four that have opened in the last 12 months and are a must when visiting the city:

Tetro: A one-man show serving new dishes daily

Between the Vieux Port and the oldest part of the city, the Panier neighborhood has emerged to soak up the overspill of well-scrubbed bohemian crusaders. Run by Raf Francois, 27, an Arles-born hyperactive devotee to his craft, Tetro defines itself by having a menu that changes daily. He dreams up the dishes as he goes, serving them before the beautiful people six days a week. His drive converts vigorously to the plate. Each one is meticulously spun.

‘I started this place to disrupt the concept. Restaurants exhaust people. I wanted to have a place where no one would suffer. I work with farmers and fishermen who get paid what they want and have Clara help me in the kitchen for no more than 20 hours a week. This is how everyone is happy and how I keep my prices down.’

Tetro’s menu is influenced by whatever Raf may find that morning. ‘Every day, my starting point is to go to a farmers market,’ he says. ‘Each one on a different day, scattered around the city. Anyone choosing to go to the supermarket is insane. They are hell. You get on a downer, leaving a supermarket, but going to a farmers market is like a kid finding dinosaur bones in the ground.’

When pushed on the danger of the city changing too fast, Raf fires back: ‘Calling everything gentrification in Marseille is counterproductive. We have to pick sides. There is a strong political will to make Marseille a faceless, sanitized paradise, but our fight should be against corporations like Starbucks or Airbnb. I have no interest in turning my restaurant into a business, let alone a brand.' 

Best dish: ‘Try my homemade pasta with clams or whatever I tell you on the day.’ 

Where to go: ‘As for the institutions of Marseille, you have to eat in Shanghai Kitchen in the Old Port. It’s the real deal. Limmat for lunch in Cours Julien, where I trained, and Bar Nautic in the Calanque Morgieu. Walk there in two hours, then sit overlooking the sea at the end of a beautiful day.’

Bonnies: a reinvented local haunt where simple food is cooked impeccably  

Out of the way from any tourist traffic, on a busy thoroughfare through the center of the city, is a relaxed troquet, a workers' bar serving a plat de jour, now owned by a laser-focused Glaswegian, Megan Moore, 29. It has created a buzz with local restaurateurs, holidaymakers and those who have always frequented the neighborhood.

Bonnies may have more than its fair share of sunburned Londoners in the summer, but unlike back home, they discover something that is quite rare, even in Marseille: a place with a deep respect for what came before.

Megan flits painstakingly from behind the bar to the kitchen. Baking brioche (an old lady from the neighborhood insists that I state that it's the best in the city), gutting sardines, chatting with locals and serving up cloudy Ricard while her chef, Lucas, takes delicate care of what goes in and out of the oven.  

I sit down to one of their snacks, a Provençal take on Mexican street food. Tostilocos is traditionally a bag of crisps cut open to be topped with cucumber, mango, peanuts and chamoy. Bonnies' version adds a steak tartare to a folded-back packet of Lay’s, garnished with a finely chopped zest of gherkin and chive. It takes you from a bus stop in the Gorbals to Mexico City in seconds, capturing Marseille's humour. 

When I ask her where the pull of her restaurant lies, she says, ‘The food is as locally sourced as I can make it while keeping it accessible to everyone. I also use a halal butcher, as the reality is that I have friends who eat within their religious dietary code and yet drink alcohol, dispelling the myth that halal meat is of low quality. These cows were once grazing in the Alps."

What to eat: ‘You have to try the chocolate mousse. Laurence Diavorini, the previous owner, gave me the recipe before she passed away. A luxurious dish that lives on in her name.’

Where she goes: ‘Chez Romain et Marion, an Afghani mother and son who drop beautiful food in front of you and Chez Paul in Les Goudes, overlooking the water. They make pizza, the fish is good, and they’re super chatty and funny. It sums up the city completely.’ 

Le Consolat: Asian food from the finest Provençal ingredients 

The Longchamp district, dominated by the opulent splendour of its immense palace, has always been fancy. It is home to hot date spots for hot couples like L'Ivresse. Le Consolat is the newest addition to the neighborhood. 

I meet Mina Kandé, 31, half French, half Senegalese, who grew up in the small commune of Saint-Rémy de Provence, at the soft launch of her ode to Asian food. ‘I lived for seven years in China, eating way too much before I came home to study to be a chef,’ she tells me as I snap her outside her first restaurant. 

Mina and the other chef, Wen from Wuhan, China, say they will sidestep the danger of muted flavors in Asian-fusion cuisine by first earning the confidence of their customers’ palates. The focus is also on the best local, natural produce they can lay their hands on. 

I start with a cold Provençal broth: an aubergine and summer vegetable-layered tian meets spicy and perfect pistou. Their knife-chopped steak tartare, garnished with nuts and served with pickles, hits the mark, accompanied by Vermouth sodas. The fermented rice dessert, served with in-season peaches, takes it all to another realm entirely.

When talking of food and identity, Mina becomes animated: ‘In France, people want to know where you are from, especially when you are mixed-race. They will fetishize you or put you in a box. Asking people where they are from is as tiresome as asking where a dish is from. Accept that both are from love.’

What to eat: ‘The moules, covered in matchstick fries and served in a tangy Yuxiang sauce, are exactly the trip we want to take you on.’ 

Where to go: ‘I love Les Rigoles. It's a Sephardic-Moroccan place with a lot of atmosphere. When they make fish soup, it animates the whole neighborhood.’

Le Saint Esprit: Gastronomic experience making tongue and brain run wild

On a sublime terrace at the top of the oldest part of town, Le Saint Esprit does not mess around. It’s not cheap, and to be honest, there’s not much on the plate, but what there is is enough to blow you away.

Louis Rohrer, 28, from Alsace via Paris, has employed a young, self-taught South American chef with the guile of a future Michelin-starred owner. Although he tackles his dishes with precision and seriousness, the result is overwhelmingly joyful and liberating. 

The grilled rock octopus, served on aubergine mousse and gently covered in a precise melted layer of lardo, is so sublime that it was almost too much to take after the cuttlefish tartare in hazelnuts and fermented tomato water. How, like heartache, can ecstasy taste so wonderfully sour? 

Le Saint Esprit is imaginative and confident, and it’s reclaiming a neighborhood that has grown banal from the giant cruise liners that dump their tourists in search of chips as they funnel their way through the ancient, narrow streets.

‘It is not about opening a restaurant, it is about being part of a community,’ says Louis. ‘It is important people understand what we do.’

What should you eat: ‘All our fish – try our air-dried fish and the coffee from our coffee shop next door.’

Where to eat: ‘Chez Etienne is cool – it's been here forever – and L’Ideal grocery in Noailles for those in the know.'