Our five favorite restaurants in Marseille, from a former diving club on the rocks at Les Goudes to two three-Michelin-star tables, one above the water at the Anse de Maldormé and one on a residential street in the 8th.
A table by the window at Auffo. Photo: Auffo
In a port city the best restaurants tend to sit close to the water, and in Marseille the menu is often set by what was caught that morning. Four of the five places listed here are on the sea, between the Vallon des Auffes, the southern corniche, and the far end of Les Goudes, and the fifth is on a residential street outside of the city center. These are the five restaurants worth knowing. For more of where to stay, drink, and shop around them, see our Marseille city guide.
Tuba Club
At the entrance to Les Goudes, where the road out of Marseille nearly ends and the Calanques National Park begins, is a former diving club that reopened in 2020 as an eight-room hotel with a restaurant situated directly on the rocks. The tables are set out on the limestone under white parasols, the fishermen still pull up to sell the kitchen their morning catch, and a ladder drops straight into the sea for a swim after the meal. Start with something cold, the oysters or the carpaccio, then the fish of the day, the sole is our recommendation, and finish with the warm madeleines. Book ahead and come for sunset if you can. In high season the tables on the rocks are kept for hotel guests, though a larger party may get lucky. Parking is scarce, and on a day out on a boat you can arrive by water instead. It remains one of the most beautiful tables in the south of France. To read more about the cabin-style rooms and the building’s past as a diving club, see A Look Inside Tuba Club.
A table on the rocks at Tuba Club. Photo: Déstaire
Auffo
A Michelin-starred table set overlooking the rocks at the Vallon des Auffes, with windows that look straight over the water to the Château d’If and the Frioul islands and a kitchen built on freshly caught fish from the local boats. This is the address for an elevated lunch or dinner in Marseille, with tasting menus from €135 to €210, a lunch menu at €95, and a weekday lunch formula at €45 that is the most affordable option. Reservations are essential, through the website or TheFork.
A seafood restaurant built around its own fish counter, on the Corniche Kennedy at Malmousque. It is the perfect place for a long lunch on a summer day, with a plate of oysters to start, the catch the boats brought in that morning, a bottle of wine, and the sea just across the road. Every service is by reservation.
Oysters at Poissonnerie Kennedy. Photo: Poissonnerie Kennedy
Le Petit Nice
On the Anse de Maldormé, a couple of minutes along the corniche from Poissonnerie Kennedy, the restaurant of Gérald Passedat, which has held three Michelin stars since 2008. His grandfather Germain Passedat bought the villa in 1917 and named it Le Petit Nice, and the family has run it ever since, with Gérald the third generation in the kitchen. Over the year the kitchen cooks around sixty species of Mediterranean fish, many of them lesser-known and local, in a dining room that looks directly over the sea. It is the only Relais & Châteaux in Marseille, with a hotel of sixteen rooms and two villas above the water, a pool on the rocks, rooms from €460 a night, and a second, more casual restaurant on the site, Le 1917. Book through the website or by phone.
A table over the sea at Le Petit Nice. Photo: Richard Haughton
AM par Alexandre Mazzia
On a residential street in Saint-Giniez, in the 8th, a dining room of around twenty seats that has held three Michelin stars since 2021, with a tasting menu that runs to some forty small courses. The menus are priced from around €175 at lunch to around €435 at dinner, without drinks. It is one of the hardest tables in France to book, so reserve as far ahead as you can, through the website.
The kitchen at AM par Alexandre Mazzia. Photo: AM par Alexandre Mazzia
From the rocks at Les Goudes to a quiet, residential street in the 8th, these are the five restaurants worth knowing in Marseille.
You can find all of our recommendations in our Marseille city guide, from more restaurants, to the city’s best coffee shops, hotels, bakeries, bars, and shops, along with the day trips just outside of the city, with every address pinned on a map.
