Editor’s note: Here at Culinary Backstreets, we eagerly await the coming of spring each year, not just for the nicer weather but also because some of our favorite foods and dishes are at their best – or indeed, are only available – for a short period during this season. This post from Marseille is the first installment of “Spring (Food) Break 2021,” a weeklong celebration of our favorite springtime eats. In France, cheese is served as a main course in the winter. We melt raclette over potatoes and dunk hunks of baguette into oozy baked Mont D’Or, the warm, alpine cheeses keeping us toasty on cold nights. But once the temperature starts to rise, and we shed our winter layers, our hunger for these hearty cheeses wanes. We crave something tangier. Something brighter and lighter. We want brousse du Rove.

With Marseille restaurants shuttered in the Covid era, many have transitioned to offering more takeout-friendly fare: namely, sandwiches. The hip bistro Cedrat’s 15-euro “hot fish” features a house-made fish sausage, poutargue (dried red mullet eggs) and seaweed. Michelin-starred fine-dining chef Alexandre Mazzia cures his own pastrami for a decadent, €21 croque-monsieur. Yet while high-end hoagies make fine once-in-a-while treats, we remain loyal to the old-school sandwich stand Chez Fanny. Located a few blocks up the hill from the Vieux-Port, this corner stand serves up fantastic sandwiches at phenomenal prices. The menu includes classics (think merguez-frites) and signature sammies that make the most of the region’s bounty.

In Marcel Pagnol’s iconic 1930s Marseille trilogy, dockworkers sip pastis at Bar de la Marine, a Vieux-Port bar that still stands today. Later in the century, pastis is as prominent a character as its star, Detective Fabio Montale, in Jean-Claude Izzo’s 90s Marseille noir crime novels. The city’s quintessential quaff is as popular as ever in present day Marseille. At lunchtime and apéro hour, locals clink glasses filled with the opaque green elixir on sun-soaked terraces. A group of tracksuit-clad fans shares a bottle of Ricard on the Velodrome steps before an OM game. “It is a drink meant for sharing,” says Guillaume Strebler of local Distellerie de la Plaine.

Editor’s note: Normally when December rolls around, we ask our correspondents to share their “Best Bites,” as a way to reflect on the year in eating. But 2020 was not a normal year. So at a time when the act of eating has changed for so many, our correspondents will write about their “Essential Bites,” the places, dishes, ingredients and other food-related items that were grounding and sustaining in this year of upheaval. Last March we loaded the car with our best cooking gear, bought enough provisions at Carrefour to fill a big red shopping cart, and headed to Garikula to ride out the pandemic in our village sanctuary. The seasonal cold winds ripped down the Tedzami Valley to shake winter off the trees; before unloading the car, we stoked the wood-burning stove to shake it out of our walls.

Although reputed for its meat, La Femme du Boucher is nothing like your classic steakhouse. Plants dangle from the ceiling and sprout on shelves, making the covered patio feel like an outdoor garden, and a heap of roasted vegetables gets equal footing with our huge hunk of boudin, or blood sausage. We have chef Laëtitia Visse, the woman behind “The Butcher’s Wife,” to thank for this departure from the clubby, gentleman vibe. The young chef’s first restaurant reflects her simple desire: to serve up great food and good times. The generous plates and convivial space help see to that.

“You’re going to need this,” the owner winks, handing us a steak knife to dig into our colossal calzone. When a customer wanting a quick bite orders macarronada (penne topped with meatballs, sausage and tomato sauce) he warns that it’ll take some time since “we make our pasta fresh.” Clearing the table next to us, he teases a woman for not finishing her plate, like she was family rather than a customer. Fitting for a restaurant that feels like you’re dining in an Italian home. Tucked away on the sloping side streets of Saint-Lambert, Le Vésuvio is a slice of Italy in the heart of Marseille. For 20 years, Salvatore and Anne-Marie have dished up wood-fired pizzas and hearty pastas from their homeland. Garrulous Salvatore runs the front of the house while his more discreet wife – whom he affectionately calls “the boss” – cooks unfussy Italian classics.

Though France shares a border with Belgium and sits across the English Channel from the UK, the country doesn’t have as big a beer culture as its neighbors. The French consume less than half of the European average of seventy liters per person. The trends have been shifting over the past few years, however, spurned by the deluge of microbrews in the United States and elsewhere. From 246 microbrasseries in 2016, France now has a whopping 1653 since the start of 2020. Marseille’s first microbrasserie, La Plaine, set sail in 2013 (the industrial La Cagole – whose bottles sport the city’s clichéd bimbo – doesn’t count). La Minotte followed in 2015. Then, in April 2018, we got our first bona fide brewpub: Zoumaï.

With the heat wave pushing the thermometer past the 90s, Marseillais are hitting the city’s beaches and cafés, where they cool off with limonade (sparkling lemonade), citron pressé (a glass of fresh-squeezed lemon in which you add water to your liking) or citronnade. The latter is lemonade in French, but in Marseille, it often means the bracing, whole-lemon beverage sipped across the Maghreb. Normally, we go to Chez Yassine for our citronnade. When the snack bar was closed for Eid al-Adha (the “Festival of Sacrifice,” one of Islam’s two main festivals), we ended up at Saf-Saf, another Tunisian spot down the street. It was listed on the menu as fait maison (homemade) citronnade, so we were surprised when the waiter brought over a sleek bottle.

Sandwiched between Cours Julien and La Plaine, Rue Saint-Michel is stuffed with a smorgasbord of epicurean shops. Each window display is an edible advertisement: wheels of cheese at Art de la Fromagerie and mushroom-stuffed raviolis at Pâtes Fraiches et Raviolis Cédric Bianco tempting passersby behind the glass. The signless number 26 is more nondescript. From across the street, the mural of handymen above the storefront makes it seem like a hardware store. The jars of pickled vegetables beside the door say otherwise. Go inside, and you’ll find one of Marseille’s best épiceries.

If you ask a Marseillais where to cavort on the coast, most will respond, without hesitation, “the Calanques”: turquoise coves tucked between towering limestone cliffs that can only be reached by foot, boat or paddle. Spanning Marseille and Cassis, this national park gets all the glory – and tourist campaigns – for its jaw-dropping grandeur. But, north of the city, you’ll find more intimate calanques that also merit a visit: the Côte Bleue. Unlike the barely inhabited Calanques National Park, the “Blue Coast” is dotted with fishing villages anchored in blue coves, each one appearing to have been carved into the limestone hills. Some of the secluded ports are connected by hiking trails that weave between beach pines and the Mediterranean.

From Gascogne’s prized ducks to the buckwheat gallettes of Bretagne, each chunk of France has its distinct food traditions. In Marseille, the capital of Provence, the recipes brim with the region’s olive oil, garlic and tomatoes as well as plenty of Mediterranean fish. On menus around town, you’ll find an anchoïade here or artichauts à la barigoule (braised artichokes) there, but it is hard to find a restaurant that is fully devoted to the Provençal classics. Chez Madie les Galinettes is one of the few. From alouettes sans tête (beef roll ups in tomato sauce) to soupe de poisson, the menu reads like a Marseille mamie’s (grandmother’s) cookbook. You’ll feel like you’re dining in a local’s home, thanks to the familial warmth of its ebullient owner, Delphine Roux.

Perched at Marseille’s northern border along the Mediterranean, the port of L’Estaque once teemed with fishermen. Starting in the 17th century, local pêcheurs would catch sardines, tuna, mackerel and poissons de roches (the rockfish that are essential to the city’s iconic bouillabaisse.) In the 1960s, these independent fishermen were swallowed up by the increase in industrial fishing, which led to a decline in the fish population – particularly sardines. Though pleasure boats now outnumber the port’s barquettes (traditional wooden fishing boats), L’Estaque’s fishing heritage hasn’t totally dried up. In 1976, Marseille’s wholesale fish market moved from the Vieux-Port to the Port du Saumaty, just south of the village. And, since 1997, L’Estaque is home to one of the city’s best fresh fish restaurants on the sea: Hippocampe.