Two great pleasures in this Provencal city: Marseille food and Marseille shopping. This post summarises both, starting with the signature dishes and key ingredients of the city’s cuisine, plus a few ideas on where to look for restaurants. Then, we outline key items to buy in Marseille, followed by a rundown of the city’s main shopping areas and what you can expect to find in each one.
Marseille food: key flavours

The writer Jean-Claude Izzo highlighted three of his favourite Marseille flavours when he titled his memoirs Garlic, Mint and Sweet Basil. The fragrance of basil was a special childhood memory for him and one of his favourite things to eat combined several basic Marseille flavours: ‘A few drops of olive oil on nice red pomodoro, two or three leaves of basil sprinkled over it, a hunk of leftover bread rubbed in garlic and your taste buds go dancing. I don’t know any simpler happiness.’ Marseille cuisine, he said, revolves around simple, local foods: mediterranean vegetables, local herbs, plus spices from the East – cumin, coriander – and locally caught fish.
2 famous marseille products


Bouillabaisse was originally a simple soup devised to use up cheaper pieces of fish. It’s curious name comes from to French verbs which explain how to cook it – bouillir (to boil) and baisser, (turn the heat down, ie simmer) The result is a flavoursome soup, which usually contains fish and seafood, cooked with olive oil and tomatoes and flavoured with garlic, saffron and fennel. There are said to be 2 key rules – the fish should be caught in the Mediterranean and no lobster should be included! No longer a humble dish, today bouillabaisse is a plat gastronomique, served in many of Marseille’s restaurants, often with toasted bread rubbed with garlic and perhaps a garlic rouille sauce.
Pastis, also known as the petit jaune or ‘little yellow drink’, was first made in Marseille in the 1930s by Paul Ricard and today it’s the city’s best known export. It’s strong – 45% alcohol! – so always drunk diluted with water. Ingredients include aniseed and fennel – the exact recipe is secret! – and local advice says you should drink it cold, with friends, in moderation and – the most important thing – preferably in Marseille. Try ordering it at the Bar de la Marine at the Vieux Port, where photographs and posters relating to the author Marcel Pagnol are a reminder that this bar was a favourite venue of his and of some the characters he created.
influences: local and global

Local produce forms the mainstay of Marseille cuisine: lots of mediterranean vegetables – peppers, aubergines, courgettes and, above all, tomatoes – and olives in all sizes and varieties. Equally important is a huge variety of fish and seafood – sea bass, mullet, sea urchin, calamari (ie squid), clams, mussels and much more. Sardines are popular and there’s even a legend about a giant sardine which once blocked the harbour. (the origin of this is explained on the podcast!)
savoury specialities


Soupe au Pistou – also known as Provençal soup’ – is a tomato-based bean and vegetable soup, cooked slowly and flavoured with garlic and basil. La bourride, said to be a ‘more refined cousin of bouillabaisse’, is based on white fish and seafood. Flavoursome sauces are popular: l’aïoli, a garlic mayonnaise, anchoïade, a mix of olives, anchovies, capers, olive oil and garlic and tapenade, traditionally made with olives, capers and pine nuts, sometimes with the addition of anchovies. Traditional recipes include Pieds et pacquets which is tripe and lambs feet cooked for hours in white wine flavoured with tomatoes, garlic and parsley and poutargue, small pieces of tuna or mullet preserved in salt.
sweet treats

The recipe for navettes, orange-flavoured, boat shaped biscuits, has been kept secret for more than 200 years. Other favourites are croquants marseillais, biscuits made with almond and honey, and marseillotes, a nougat treat covered in chocolate. Fried doughnut-type treats, dusted in icing sugar, called chichis are a speciality of nearby L’Estaque, often sold from vans to be taken away in their paper wrappings and enjoyed as you explore. There is more on the podcast about seasonal specialities such as the pompe à l’huile, made for Christmas and the colombier cakes made with ground almonds and egg white which are sold around Whitsun.
restaurants

The best areas for restaurants include the Vieux Port, full – of course! – of fish restaurants, and the Cours Julien and Le Panier districts where you will find a huge variety of cuisines from all corners of the globe. To whet your appetite, here are a couple of descriptions of restaurant meals from literature.
From The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle
‘The dish of the day arrived in all its dusty glory, with tendrils and thin slices of inkfish resting on a bed of glistening black angel’s hair pasta. To one side, for a change of texture and to provide what Philippe called an epiphany for the palate, there was a creamy sauce of goat’s cheese.’
From Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo
‘Mozzarella and tomatoes, with capers, anchovies and black olives for starters. Spaghetti with clams as a main dish. Tiramisu for dessert. To drink, a Bandol from the Pibarnon vineyards.’
More examples are included on the podcast.
3 ideas for souvenirs of marseille


Soap has been produced in Marseille for centuries, using local olive oil and you’ll find a number of shops specialising in Savon de Marseille. Originally it had no colouring, but today you’ll find rows of different coloured soaps with perfume ranging from lemon and lavender to mimosa and coconut. Alternatively, a box of navettes, the boat shaped biscuits, whether the traditional orange blossom flavour or one of the many alternatives, makes a good souvenir.
Most provençal – and unusual – are santons, the little clay figures which were originally made for nativity scenes at Christmas, but which are now found in many more guises, representing all the characters who might populate a local village. Families collect them and pass them down to future generations. You can buy them at several shops in Marseille – see below – or use their mail-order service to have them sent to you at home. In nearby Aubagne, there is a Village des Santons, open nearly every day of the year – entry is free – where you can see 19 set-piece village scenes, each with dozens of characters, representing everyone in the village from shepherds to pétanque players. Utterly charming!
where to go shopping in marseille
Don’t miss the markets, especially the biggest one, the Marché de Noailles, a few minutes’ walk up La Canebière from the harbour. Crowded, colourful, noisy, full of mediterranean produce as well as spices and flavours from all over the world. In addition, here are four areas of the city which are particularly good for shopping.


Le Vieux Port: firstly, it’s a must-do Marseille experience to visit the harbourside fish market one morning and perhaps to buy a grilled sardine snack. There may be more restaurants than shops around the harbour, but things to look out for include: the Musée du Savon de Marseille La Licorne at 25, Quai de Rive Neuve where as well as buying Marseille soap you can learn its history and try your hand at making some. On the other side of the harbour, tucked behind the restaurants at 96 Quai du Port is Escoffier, one of the city’s santons shops.

La Cure Gourmande is at 19, La Canebière, definitely the place to buy navette biscuits and lots of other edible treats. They’ll almost certainly offer you a free taste and you can choose from boxed sets or have your own selection made up. At no 44 is the official Olympique de Marseille merchandise shop, should football souvenirs be your thing. And Torrefaction Noailles at no 56 is a real treat – a café and shop with a wide range of gourmet coffee and chocolates and a lovely atmosphere, the sort of place where the locals meet up and no-one minds if you lose yourself in a novel for an hour or two. Opened in 1927, it’s now a Marseille institution.

In the Le Panier district you’ll find loads of arty shops where you can buy
clothing, art, jewellery and pottery and sometimes even watch artists and craftsmen at work. Of special interest, for a peek at local culture, is La Maison de la Boule, where you can buy anything boule-related, browse the photos and posters linked to the game or have a go yourself on the shop’s little indoor playing area. Run by the 4th generation of a local family, it was set up by the world’s oldest manufacturer of those little silver balls you see people playing with in parks and village squares all over France. There’s another santons shop here too, Arterra at 15 Rue du Petit Puits


And lastly, the La Joliette Area, the site of the old port which has been majorly revamped, is home to a number of shopping venues. Just below the Major cathedral are Les Voûtes, arcades built from former quays, then further down are two more complexes: Les Terrasses du Port, a modern centre full of shops and restaurants, with a stunning rooftop terrace facing out to sea and Les Docks, built by joining four former warehouses together. It’s a light, airy structure, full of big open spaces, decorated with a series of terraces, plants and modern art displays where you’ll find shops, concept stores, art galleries and restaurants,

Inside Les Docks is Maison Yellow (formerly known as Mx Marseille), a concept store dedicated to Ricard products where you can visit a museum on the history and uses of pastis, choose from a whole range of their products, drink in the bar, where every piece of furniture including the babyfoot table is bright yellow or eat in the restaurant, all done out in black, white and vibrant green, where the menu includes – of course – dishes flavoured with aniseed. If you’re hazy on what a concept store actually is, Maison Yellow is the place to find out.
Listen to the podcast
reading suggestions
Garlic, Mint and Sweet Basil by Jean-Claude Izzo
The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle
links for this post
More Information
Foodie Guide to Marseille
Shopping in the Le Panier district
Eating out in the Le Panier district
Information on Cours Julien
Santons of Provence
Places to visit
Bar de la Marine
Musee du Savon de Marseille de la Licorne
La Cure Gourmande
Olympique de Marseille
Torrefaction Noailles
Maison de la Boule
Maison Yellow
Santons Village in Aubagne
3 Santons shops in Marseille
Escoffier
Arterra
Marcel Carbonel
Previous episode Boat Trips, Beaches and the Château d’If
Next episode In the Footsteps of Marcel Pagnol
Last Updated on November 21, 2024 by Marian Jones