Food Tour in Marseille

Tuesday February 28 was a very cold day with a bit of rain.  The high was only 9C and it was very gloomy.  This is unusually cold and grey weather for Marseille at the end of February.   

Marseille is the second largest city in France.  There are about 850, 000 in the city and about 1.7 million people in the metropolitan area.  Its port is the largest in France.

We headed up to the Gare St-Charles, the main train station, where we were meeting our guide for our Culinary Backstreets food tour.   They are our favourite food tour company, as they provide a lot of social history as well as taking folks to out of the way and interesting food experiences.   Our meeting spot was at one of the lions at the top of the stairway to the train station.  We came up from the other side of the station so did not have to walk up the stairway.

Meeting spot at the top of the stairs.

We did walk down the stairs and went into the restaurant with the large mural to get oriented.

Walking down the stairway

Chloé was our guide.  She was from a small town between Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, and has been living in Marseille for the past four years.  She has a background in urban planning, but has taken on other work and was doing the food tours part time.  Chloé was a great guide with an interesting Corsican-Algerian family background.  We stopped at  Café l'Écomotive at the bottom of the stairs.  Chloé noted that it was one of the first places to serve vegetarian and vegan organic food.  We just had a coffee and Chloé told us the story of the train station.

Outside of the Café-- the mural was done by a Greek artist and featured a number of extinct birds

Very boho and busy spot

We had some cookies from Les Navettes des Accoules near our apartment

The very imposing train station with immense sculptures is a historical monument which opened in January 1848 and was completed a few years later.  It was built to connect Marseille to the rail network in the midst of the Industrial Revolution when the city was experiencing a real economic boom.  After it was completed, folks realised that the station was cut off from the city centre by a number of buildings, which the State bought in 1903.  There was a need for a staircase linking the station to Boulevard d'Athènes.  The work was carried out until 1921. There are 104 stairs. The sculptures evoked the colonies of Asia and Africa.  The stairs were finallyinaugurated in April 1927.  

Chloé noted that there had been protests by anti-racist groups in 2020 after the death of George Floyd. The two sculptures representing women and children from the colonies are seen as offensive to the many immigrants to Marseille.

One of the sculptures representing colonization and the power of the French empire

Our food tour was entitled: Beyond Bouillabaisse and it focused both on local Marseille and Provençal products as well as foods from the many immigrant communities that have come to the city.   There are very large communities from Armenia, Algeria, Tunisia and other former colonies.  A different mix than Toronto and all with very interesting foods.

We stopped at an amazing Armenian food store featuring products from Armenia, Russia and Middle Eastern countries.

Outside of Anahit

Armenia flag- it was a very large store with an incredible array of products

Wine, beer and vodkas and cognacs from Armenia, Russia and the Balkans

There is a large Armenian community in Marseille

The Armenian alphabet on the left

We had a taste of some Armenian cured beef-with cumin, paprika and other spices

Racks of spices

Around the corner- protest poster

There is a lot of street art in Marseille.

We stopped at a square with a small market and a panisse stand near the Réformés Metro stop.  There are 111 districts in Marseille, in 11 arrondissements.  Our tour took us through a number of districts.  We were in the Chapitre district of the 1st arrondissement at this point in the tour, at the top of the large street, Canebiére.

View of Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, called Les Réformés by locals as is it is located
on the site of the former chapel of the Reformed Augustinians  

Time for some panisses- a local Marseillaise specialty.  Similar to socca in Nice.  Both made with chickpea flour, but a different cooking technique

Yum

Bon Vivant-- definitely

Chloé told us that typical Marseille apartment buildings are four stories tall and have three windows across.  There is usually one apartment per floor.  

Now we're on the lookout for these typical apartment buildings

Flower market, part of the square

We walked over to Les Réformés church to take a closer look.

Joan of Arc

Imposing Gothic outside- Roman Catholic Church, dedicated in 1886

Our next stop was La Boutique Saladin, Epices du Monde, an incredible spice shop.  

Outside of Saladin

Every kind of spice imaginable

So many choices

Lots of different tempenades and harissas

We then went to Pastels World in the Noailles district for some African food.  There were a number of pastels with different fillings and wonderful drinks-- Ginger and Pineapple, Coconut and Bissap.

Inside Pastels World

Different fillings- 1 euro each- each one has a number on it 

Pastels and drinks -numbers on pastels so one knows what the filling is

They also have one main dish a day-- beef, veg, corn and rice

Chloé told us that Jamie Oliver had recently eaten at Pastels world.  It already seems to be a popular place with locals-- the waitstaff were very nice and friendly.

Part of the menu at the door

Lots to eat and the pastels were very filling.  We then went to one of the oldest and largest hardware/kitchen suppliers in Marseille.  Maison Empereur has been in business since 1827.

Outside of Maison Empereur

All your kitchen needs

We headed up the spiral staircase to a room with artifacts from the history of the store

Balls for pétanque 

A few blocks away was a narrow street with two stores run by the same family; Maison Blaize and Blaize Père.  One store was full of herbs for healing (founded in 1815) and the other was full of teas and tisanes.  The street was named after the family.

Maison Blaize

Blaize Pére- the herbalist

We had a tisane sample and bought some mint tea

Then we stopped at Maison Journo, a Patisserie Orientale.  It had Tunisian Jewish treats.  Chloé explained that "Orientale" is often used in France to refer to the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Lots of lovely pastries

Alain and his treat.  We had hot tea (with sugar as in the Middle East)

Then a quick stop at La Chocolatière de Marseille for some delicious chocolate.

Inside sign

Delicious chocolate

We walked towards the harbour, passing a sign which showed us where the water used to flow.

The Vieux port

We never tire of the view

Our last stop on the tour was the bar on the second floor on the Hotel Belle-Vue located on Quai du Port.  

It has a nautical theme for its decoration.  The hotel dates back to the 1950s and has a laid-back vibe.  We had a drink of Pastis.

Outside of the Hotel Bellevue (Bar where terrace is) (I took this pic on Wednesday in the sun) 

Bar area with nautical decoration

Coastal cities noted

Chloé pouring water into our pastis

Small outdoor terrace at the bar-- a gorgeous view on a sunny day, but too cold today

It was a fantastic tour.  We explored new areas of the city, stopped at food stores and shops we would not have known about and learned a lot of the social history of Marseille.   We highly recommend Culinary Backstreets Tours in the cities where they are offered.  Our tour ended at around 4:00 p.m.

We were not far from our apartment, so headed back there, first stopping at the cheese shop that had been closed on Monday.  La Meulerie had some great looking cheeses and we got some pecorino with pepper.

La Meulerie Fromagerie

Say Cheese- very nice store

We passed the Holocaust memorial just in front of the Hotel Intercontinental.   Chloé had told us the story of how the Nazis had decided in 1943 to raze a district in Marseille.  The Nazi's had arrived in Marseille on November 12, 1942.  Under the pretext of responding to Resistance attacks, they placed the city under siege on January 5, 1943.  They picked the Saint Jean district (which no longer exists as a district), which is adjacent to the Le Panier district where we are staying.  The district was mainly working class, with a large Jewish and Italian immigrant population and as well had a red-light district.  "Operation Sultan", ordered by Hitler himself, was carried out from January 22 to February 17, 1943 in collaboration with the French authorities and police.

It marked the first mass roundup of French Jewish families in Marseille. The residents were evacuated by force on January 24, 1943 and the district was dynamited by the Nazis.  It was a huge operation; 12,000 gendarmes; 40,000 identity checks, 5,956 people arrested; 1642 people including 782 Jews deported to the Sobibor killing centre.  20,000 people were forcibly evacuated from the Saint-Jean quarter with 15,000 people crammed into cattle cars and sent to a military camp in Fréjus, 140 km from Marseille; 800 selected in Fréjus for deportation to concentration camps; and 1494 buildings destroyed covering 14 hectares of land. Those that returned found their former homes and businesses destroyed.  

The event was not well known or talked about until very recently.  The exhibit (which we just missed) took place 80 years after the event.

Memorial

Memorial to the Deportation, Imprisonment and the Resistance- 1983

A second plaque in memory of the victims of racist and antisemitic persecution and crimes against humanity committed under the authority of the French state (1940-44)

There was a series of photos on the fence near the memorial. They were part of the temporary exhibit about the razing of the district.  Most of the exhibit in the port area, had already been dismantled.

The long file of habitants evacuated by force and contained by the French Police

The Saint-Jean district, dynamited by the Germans, February 1943

Antoine Mignemi lived with his parents at 66 Rue Laurent.  He was five years old at the time
of the roundup on January 24, 1943.  He founded le Collective Saint-Jean 24 janvier 1943 and
works for the memory of the crimes committed against humanity and education of these events.

We made a quick stop at the apartment and then headed out to the wine store that had been closed on Monday.

More street art

We went to the wine store, La Descente des Accoules, which had been recommended by our host and others in the 'hood.  The store supplies a number of restaurants in the area.  It was a lovely store and the wine guy was very helpful in choosing a local red wine.  We also bought some Corsican sausage for dinner.

Inside of the wine store

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

We then headed back to the port in search of some warm layers.   We walked by the old St. Jean neighbourhood (just below the Le Panier district) on the way to the port.  It is still mainly an empty square beside City Hall, though there are some new buildings on the left side on the waterfront.

Where the St. Jean neighbourhood was razed

The port--- with Cathedral in the distance

Alain picked up a light-down puffer vest at Uniqlo.   We passed by a memorial to WWII soldiers and the French Resistance.

One side of the Memorial

The other side of the Memorial - with a winged sculpture in the square

Then we went back to the apartment for a very light dinner- a charcuterie board of sausage, cheese, baguette, olives with a green salad and a piece of chocolate for dessert.  The food tour was fabulous and a great way to spend a grey day in Marseille as we were in and out of shops and were able to keep warm.