Voilà vé is a Marseillais interjection meaning “look here.” Look – and taste, Victor Million-Rousseau and his partner Alix Huguet might add. They are the owners of the Camas neighborhood’s organic wine bar Voilà Vé, which opened its doors just six months before the first Covid-19 lockdown and the ensuing rocketing upsurge in the organic market with new concern for nature and health during the pandemic. The bar has survived the last couple of tumultuous years, sustained by the quality of its selection and its democratic approach to wine-tasting. Following a heatwave and cold beer summer, the splendid autumn weather in this capital of Provence invites new adventures in wine. At Voilà Vé, we can do this without ever leaving Marseille.

Allée Leon Gambetta is a street branching off from Stalingrad Square in Marseille’s Réformés neighborhood, located around the corner from Gare Saint-Charles which, like most train station areas, is a bit rough around the edges. Past the unemployed men working on packs of Heineken in front of the grocery store, regulars lingering at the sandwich joints and cafés, Golda shines like a beacon, her beach-yellow parasols almost airborne over the pavement of this tree-lined street of elegant, worn buildings. Flaunty Golda, newly opened in June 2022, is in fact a relaxed, pretty corner bistro with an ample terrace bordered by leafy plants.

High above the hills of Nice, past the crowded villages frequented by tourists, is the small commune of Saint-Jeannet. Nestled among the grand limestone baous (Provençal word meaning steep rock), Saint-Jeannet sits perched like a jewel with stunning views to the sea. Built sometime in the 11th century during the High Middle Ages, the village is privy to a beguiling history. There are prehistoric and oppidum sites amid the baous, hidden caves where villagers took refuge in times of trouble, and local lore of witchcraft. Fans of Alfred Hitchcock may recognize John Robie’s villa in scenes from the 1955 classic To Catch a Thief, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.

Grain de Sable is tucked into Rue de Baignoir, which runs under the skybridge of Marseille’s Alcazar public library, near the Vieux Port. The clientele for this excellent lunch spot is as local as it gets, and comes mainly from the library itself, particularly its 400-staff-member media center. Customers who come to Grain de Sable from farther afield hear about it de bouche à oreille (by word of mouth) and find a way to dart across the city from work to enjoy an organic midday meal. For visitors, this restaurant offers a simple, healthful, and inventive meal as a welcome pause from rich food offered in many Marseille eateries. ,

Les Akolytes has the best damn seat in the house of Marseille. Akolytes’ long shaded tables, which seat over thirty people family style, is found directly across from the entry to Plage de Catalan – the first urban beach encountered when walking up from the Vieux Port. Marseille has quite a number of sea-view restaurants, but none compare to this location’s proximity to the sea and its heady brine and breeze and to its front row seats to Marseille’s beach pageant just across the street. Particularly at Catalan, every kind of human being, every look, color, origin, and age, makes their way by velo, scooter, laughing, walking, talking, crossing over, to wade into the waters glimmering before those sitting at Akolytes’ tables.

Le Mistral, as the strong northwesterly wind is known here in Marseille, returned on a recent September day for the first time in a long while. It is an indicator of the change of seasons and that autumn is upon us. A driving wind that blows directly down the Rhone Valley to the Mediterranean, it averages 30-50 miles per hour. Le Mistral is so celebrated that for 30 years, Marseille has held La Fête du Vent (The Wind Festival) and ironically, it coincides today with its return. It is also the reason that we enjoy 300 days per year of luminous, sunny skies. The wind is said to bring good health, and one reason for good wine, because it clears the vines and dries the soil.

Le République may be one of the most beautiful restaurants in Marseille. A historic space that once housed Café Parisen (from 1905, with its boulodrome for games of pétanque on the lower floor), it has been elegantly renovated and was reopened at the beginning of 2022 as a restaurant gastronomique solidaire—a gourmet “solidarity restaurant” and unique community project that embraces both guests and workers. But, without reading about it, diners would never guess this. Instead, they would take a table in the luminous space (1200 square meters!) with minimalist aesthetics, lofty ceilings, cornices, and great, dried flower-and-leaf chandeliers. There, they would discover Michelin-star chef Sébastien Richard and his team’s delightful creations, refined and simple, kindly served. Unknowingly, these guests participate directly in Le République social project.

Summer in Provençe ushers in a multitude of promises. In Marseille, it means waking to the song of the cicadas, day trips by boat to le Frioul to cool off in the sea and the afternoon rendezvous with friends for an apéro of pastis or rosé on ice. Saturdays bring the bliss of wandering through the markets in search for the perfect melon from Cavaillon, the ciflorette strawberries from Carpentras, or the succulent coeur de boeuf tomato. Perhaps the one market item that signifies the Provençal summer more than anything else is the fleur de courgette (zucchini flower). When this lovely little flower appears, we know it is officially summertime in the South.

Regain is housed behind the marigold shutter doors of one of Marseille’s trois fenêtres (meaning “three windows,” the city’s typical brownstone). From the street, one can spy the full tables of the shady urban garden far on the other side. It is hard to believe that this Rue Saint-Pierre restaurant opened just six months ago, given its current hot-spot status among Marseille gourmands. From the unusual descriptions of chef Sarah Chougnet-Studel’s creations, it’s hard to imagine what the taste and experience of any dish will be. But Regain’s many repeat diners trust in Sarah’s intriguing French-Asian amalgams: order anything on the menu and it will prove to be both intriguing and delicious.

The storefront restaurant Camas Sutra (a play on its location in the Camas neighborhood of Marseille) still sports “Boucherie, Charcuterie, Crèmerie” on the original red and yellow banners, left over from just 18 months ago when it was home to a neighborhood butcher. The “no restaurant sign” tactic, occasionally seen these days in hip neighborhoods of Marseille, is a choice to curate client discovery and word-of-mouth marketing. But glancing towards the large window as we pass by on this narrow street off Boulevard Chave, we instantly recognize that it is now a restaurant, with a solo high table outside for apéro, a grand, 17-person wooden table inside, an open kitchen, and the chef and wine server prepping, circulating, and talking wine and food with their guests.

A month ago, I moved into to my new place in Marseille’s La Plaine neighborhood. After the moving truck drove off, leaving me with stacks of boxes and furniture and no food yet in the refrigerator, I ventured out in my dusty jeans to find a place to eat some lunch in the neighborhood. On Rue Saint-Pierre, I passed Oumalala with its homey, hand-written signs offering vegetarian, organic cuisine, and I paused at the door. The olive green, ochre, and turquoise interior, lunchtime-lit candles and small vases of flowers garnishing the tables, the beautiful woman serving food, talking to customers, all pulled me in.

Across Marseille, winter’s neon-yellow mimosas have given way to amandiers’ (almond trees’) fragrant white and pink blooms. Here, the French adage, “en avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil. En mai fais ce qu'il te plaît,” (in April, don't remove a stitch. In May, do as you wish,”) is oft quipped, for our springtime weather can be fickle. Last weekend, I took a dip in the Mediterranean to cool off after a sun-soaked, 70-degree hike; as I write this, the local mistral wind has iced down the air temperature to just above freezing. Despite spring’s yo-yoing thermometer, ‘tis the season for Marseillais to fill up outdoor patios.

Though Paris is littered with brasseries boasting classic French cuisine, Marseille lacks restaurants that solely specialize in our traditional fare – a mix of Provençal garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil and the freshly caught delights of the Mediterranean. When we lamented this at a dinner party the other night, a woman chimed in, “What about Paule et Kopa?” We had never heard of it despite its central locale. She raved that the supions à la provencale (garlic, parsley squid) were the best in the city. Then continued, “but I rarely share that for fear it will lose its simple charm.”

When you board the 1 tram line in boisterous Noailles, the train snakes from a dark, underground tunnel onto the picturesque Boulevard Chave in the Le Camas district. Like the country roads of Provence, the wide street is lined with soaring plane trees. Behind them, 19th century buildings – a mix of typically Marseillais trois fenêtres (three window) and decorative Art Nouveau facades – add to the eye-pleasing promenade so beloved by locals. This scene was similar a century ago. Just a mile as the seagull flies from the Vieux-Port, Le Camas was appealing for its accessibility to the city center by tram. Landowner-turned-developer André Chave founded the neighborhood to accommodate Marseille’s growing middle class.

Mention “Les Baumettes” to a Marseillais and many immediately think of the prison that shares the name. Since the 1940s, this peripheral neighborhood has housed the city’s biggest penitentiary, where Marseille’s most notorious gangsters and French Connection collaborators did time. The prison is also infamous for France’s last execution by guillotine – shockingly recent, in 1977. For hikers and rock-climbers, on the other hand, Les Baumettes (whose name means “little grotto” in Occitan) is a gateway to the limestone fjords in the Calanques National Park. For Marseillais in the know, that entrance hides a unique place that is at once an eatery, escape and a voyage back in time.