Maybe the Grit Is the Point

There are cities that seduce you immediately.

Marseille is not one of them.

It does not arrive manicured. It does not soften its edges for visitors. It is loud and sun-bleached, gritty and occasionally chaotic, beautiful in ways that seem almost deliberately obscured.

What I loved most about Marseille was its grit.

Not in spite of its beauty, but almost because of it.

Marseille is beautiful in a way that feels fiercely protected. There is an edge to the city, a roughness that seems to say: we know what we have here. And the grit is part of how it has managed to keep it.

Because beneath it is Provence in its truest form.

Sandy feet. The taste of salt left on your skin. Sun that follows you long after you have stepped into the shade. Long lunches that become late afternoons without anyone seeming concerned about what time it is. The sea is not something you look at from a perfectly positioned terrace. You get into it. You climb down rocks to reach it. You carry it home with you on your skin.

There is something wonderfully unperformed about Marseille.

It is the antithesis of Paris, with its beautiful formality and awareness of itself. And it has little interest in becoming Saint-Tropez, where the Mediterranean can sometimes feel like a backdrop to the people who have come to be seen beside it.

Marseille doesn't seem interested in whether you are watching.

And I loved that about it.

Hand-painted blue lettering on a textured cream wall in Marseille that reads "Je murmure mes tempêtes des parois muettes. — Written on a wall, for no one in particular.

We stayed at the RockyPop Hotel, which, at first glance, feels a little like traveling back in time to an eighties episode of The Love Boat. There is color. There is kitsch. There is absolutely no attempt at Provençal minimalism.

But don't let the décor fool you into writing it off.

The rooms are exceptionally spacious, with proper king-size beds. The staff is warm and genuinely friendly. There are activities for seemingly every age and, somewhat unexpectedly, a rather glamorous rooftop lounge where you can watch the Marseille sun disappear over the city.

And what I liked most was that it sat in the middle of a real neighborhood.

That became something of a theme in Marseille.

Our first lunch set the bar dangerously high.

At Trattoria Partenope, we had what may have been the best pizza I've ever eaten. The crust, the simplicity, the ingredients. It was the kind of pizza that makes you stop talking for a minute.

If this was even a preview of what awaits in Napoli, then Napoli has moved considerably higher on my list.

Dinner that evening was at Bistro Suffren. The outdoor terrace was filled with locals, the atmosphere easy and convivial, exactly the kind of place where you want to linger over a drink as the evening begins.

The food, unfortunately, left much more to be desired.

I would return, but for an apéritif rather than dinner.

A large street mural of figures crowded onto a scooter, with café tables and folding chairs lined up beneath it on a cobblestone street in Marseille. — Marseille, street art.

The next morning, we walked.

And Marseille is a city that rewards walking, because the sea keeps appearing where you don't expect it.

Its beauty isn't packaged neatly for consumption. You have to move through the noise and the graffiti, the traffic and the old façades, the streets that can feel chaotic and occasionally hard, and then suddenly there it is: an impossible shade of blue at the end of a street. Limestone cliffs dropping into translucent water. A little table somewhere, a glass sweating in the heat. Someone diving from a rock as though this were simply an ordinary Tuesday.

And for them, it is.

Between streets and buildings are these little openings onto the Mediterranean: small coves, rocky edges and seemingly improvised places where people have decided that this particular patch of stone will do perfectly well for an afternoon swim.

There is something wonderfully democratic about it.

The sea isn't hidden behind a beach club. You don't need a reservation or a striped umbrella or a €100 sunbed to reach it.

It is simply there.

Part of the city.

Part of everyday life.

People arrive with towels and sandwiches. They climb over rocks. They swim. They dry themselves in the sun. Then they put their clothes back on and continue with their day.

That, more than anything, began to explain Marseille to me.

People swimming in calm green water below a large limestone rock along Marseille’s coastline, with sunbathers lining the stone ledge. — An ordinary Tuesday.

For lunch, we went to Chez Fonfon for the most quintessential Marseille experience of all: bouillabaisse.

It would have been easy for a restaurant so closely associated with the city's signature dish to feel ceremonial or touristy. Instead, everything, from the service to the food, delivered exactly what you hope for.

The Chez Fonfon restaurant overlooking small fishing boats moored in the Vallon des Auffes, Marseille. — Lunch at Chez Fonfon

Then, that evening, came an entirely different Marseille.

We had dinner at AM par Alexandre Mazzia.

Mazzia is one of France's pioneering chefs. And what a journey it was.

He grew up in Congo, and that history travels through the food.

There are bursts of spice, smoke, acidity and heat. Plates arrive strikingly modern, almost architectural at times, yet underneath that precision is something visceral.

Memory.

Place.

In one dish you are somewhere along the Mediterranean, tasting the ocean.

In another, the spices pull you toward the deep red earth of Africa.

And somehow both places can exist on the same plate.

That was what stayed with me most.

The food never felt like an intellectual exercise detached from the person making it. You could feel Mazzia's story running through the meal: the places he has lived, the flavors he remembers, the Marseille he inhabits now.

There are several tasting journeys to choose from.

Whichever one you choose, come hungry.

The next morning started at Pompe, a boulangerie Marseillaise.

Coffee and pastries to go.

The pastries were amazing.

And the whole time we were there, the bakery kept filling with people.

Cinnamon Pompe pastries and country loaves in a red-framed display case at Pompe, a Marseille boulangerie. — Pompe, to go.

The day was supposed to belong to the Calanques.

We had planned to spend the day exploring them, swimming beneath those great limestone cliffs that fall into the Mediterranean. But Marseille was under a heat advisory, and we had to change course.

So instead, we drove to Les Goudes.

The drive alone begins to explain the Marseille I had been discovering.

The city gradually loosens around you. Buildings give way to limestone. The road hugs the coast. The Mediterranean becomes bluer and more insistent until eventually you arrive at a tiny fishing village tucked between rock, sea and sky.

We spent the day swimming and lying in the sun.

That particular heaviness your body gets after hours in the water and heat.

Very little reason to be anywhere else.

This was the Provence I had been looking for.

Not the perfectly arranged lavender fields.

Not the immaculate tables photographed from above.

Not Provence as aesthetic.

Provence as life.

Behind the graffiti and the traffic and the buildings that haven't been scrubbed into postcard perfection, Marseille still feels inhabited rather than curated.

The fishermen.

The families swimming off the rocks.

The old men sitting outside cafés.

The tables that seem permanently occupied by someone who knows someone.

The smell of the sea following you home.

You either settle into its rhythm or you don't.

For our final dinner in the city, we went to Livingston.

And somehow, we had saved the best for last.

From the moment we arrived, the staff put us completely at ease.

There was an à la bonne franquette spirit to the place—generous, relaxed, slightly irreverent—that immediately reminded me of Le Chateaubriand in Paris.

The kind of restaurant that understands something I wish more ambitious restaurants did:

You do not have to be uptight to be Michelin-worthy.

There was no ceremony for ceremony's sake.

No sense that we needed to sit straighter because something important was about to arrive at the table.

And then the food came.

Every dish was imaginative, but imagination never seemed to be the point.

At its core, everything was simply delicious.

Every element on the plate had a reason for being there rather than existing as decoration. Nothing felt added merely because it would photograph beautifully.

Flavor came first.

Always.

The local wine list had that same spirit: fresh, unexpected, alive.

I told the team that evening that it was the best meal I'd had in Marseille.

Better, for me, even than the three-Michelin-starred AM par Alexandre Mazzia.

That isn't to diminish AM. The two restaurants are doing completely different things. AM was an extraordinary culinary journey through a chef's memory and imagination.

Livingston was the restaurant I wanted to stay in.

Swim

I would not be surprised to see it earn a star of its own.

I would go back in a heartbeat.

But the night wasn’t over.

After dinner, we went to Les Voûtes de la Major, the old stone vaults beneath the cathedral, down by the water.

Drinks.

Dancing under the stars.

Until the wee hours of the morning.

On our last day, we left Marseille and drove to Aix-en-Provence.

We happened to arrive on the perfect market day.

The streets were alive with stalls. Produce spilling from crates. Flowers. Cheese. Bread. People stopping every few steps because they had seen someone they knew.

We wandered without much purpose, ducking into stores like Family 3.0 and whatever else caught our attention.

A wrought-iron gate with the Family 3.0 sign, framed by stone pillars and terracotta urns, in front of a historic stone building in Aix-en-Provence. — Family 3.0, Aix-en-Provence.

Eventually, we did what Provence seems designed to make you do.

We stopped.

We found a terrace, ordered lunch and sat there watching the afternoon move around us.

No agenda.

No rushing to the next thing.

Just Provence life at its best.

Wicker baskets of tomatoes, peppers, avocados and potatoes on a sidewalk produce stand beside a handwritten chalkboard in Aix-en-Provence. — Tomatoes, peppers, a chalkboard. Aix.

And sitting there, I thought again about Marseille.

About how easy it would be to misunderstand it.

To arrive expecting the polished France we have been taught to desire and see only the grit.

There is grit here.

But maybe the grit is the point.

It is the thing that has kept Marseille from becoming another beautiful Mediterranean city polished smooth by our expectations of what the South of France is supposed to look like.

The coves hidden between city streets.

The fishing villages.

The extraordinary food.

The long lunches.

The tables filled with locals who have no intention of giving them up anytime soon.

Why polish all of that into something designed for us?

Paris can keep Paris.

Saint-Tropez can keep Saint-Tropez.

Marseille has the sea, the salt, the rocks, the noise, the imperfections and an entire rhythm of its own.

It is not trying to be either of them.

It knows exactly what it has.

Field notes

Where We Stayed, Ate & Wandered

Stay

RockyPop Marseille
Come for the spacious rooms and proper king-size beds; stay for the friendly staff and unexpectedly chic rooftop at sunset. The eighties Love Boat energy of the décor is part of the charm. Its location in a residential neighborhood also gives you a glimpse of Marseille beyond the waterfront.

Eat

Trattoria Partenope
For pizza. Quite possibly the best I've ever had, and reason enough to start thinking about a trip to Napoli.

Pompe
For breakfast or coffee and pastries on the go. The pastries are amazing, and the bakery fills up fast.

Chez Fonfon
For the Marseille classic: bouillabaisse. Go for lunch and take your time. The setting, service and food make it worth experiencing at least once.

AM par Alexandre Mazzia
For the journey. Mazzia's cooking moves between Marseille and his childhood in Congo, with spice, smoke, heat and the sea appearing throughout. Choose one of the tasting menus and let him take you somewhere.

Livingston
My favorite meal in Marseille. Inventive without being precious, relaxed without sacrificing ambition, with a fantastic local wine list. The kind of restaurant that makes you want to cancel whatever comes next and stay a little longer.

Drink

Bistro Suffren
Skip dinner and come for an apéritif instead. Grab a table on the outdoor terrace, order a drink and settle in among the locals.

Les Voûtes de la Major
The old stone vaults beneath the cathedral, now lined with bars. Come for drinks after dinner and stay to dance under the stars until the early hours.

Les Goudes
A tiny fishing village, a beautiful coastal drive, rocky swimming spots and an entire afternoon that required very little beyond a swimsuit and somewhere to lie in the sun.

Wander

Marseille's coastline
Walk without overplanning it. Some of my favorite moments came from discovering the little coves and rocky swimming spots hidden between ordinary city streets. Keep a swimsuit in your bag.

Aix-en-Provence
Make the drive, particularly on market day. Wander the stalls, explore the shops, including Family 3.0, then find a terrace for lunch and stay longer than you intended.