A Dive Into Marseille, France’s Oldest City
There’s much more to the vibrant and ancient port city on the Mediterranean Sea than the cliché of pétanque, pastis and distaste for Parisians.
Ever wonder why France’s national anthem Where to Stay
is called “La Marseillaise”?
That's thanks to the rousing rendition given by volunteers hailing from Marseille, who marched in Paris to defend the country in the wake of the French Revolution as alarmed European monarchies declared war on the newly minted republic.
And that passion and pride in their identity is something that even Parisians have come to appreciate — but don't get a soccer debate started on the longstanding rivalry between the Paris Saint Germain and Olympique de Marseille teams!
The French capital may be the country's glamorous center of attraction and attention, but Marseille is no slouch when it comes to the good life and millennia-long history.
The port on the Mediterranean Sea is the country's oldest city and a major crossroads for the civilizations that have thrived across the basin since it was founded as “Massilia” around 600 BCE by Greek settlers who came from Phocaea, a city on the western coast of Anatolia, now in modern-day Turkey.
Long beset by a reputation as a city of crime to rival
1930s Chicago, Marseille has been shedding its image as a seedy port, coming into its own once more as a glittering Mediterranean metropolis in the decade since it won the bid to be Europe's capital of culture for 2013. It will also host matches for the 2023 Rugby World Cup as well as soccer and sailing competitions during the 2024 Summer Olympics.
But it's also a thriving hotbed of creativity, from design and art to gastronomy and fashion.
Describing the city as “free, emancipated, indomitable, mouthy and generous,” Alix de Moussac and Aurélie Grandemenge, who moved down a decade ago to launch their lingerie and swimwear brand La Nouvelle, tell
WWD Weekend that “it is a bubbling city, its population looks like none other. Its position as a port on the Mediterranean encourages a melting pot of cultures that is the city's wealth.”
For Marseille-born designer Mélanie Gomis, who cut her teeth in Paris, London and Beirut before returning in 2020 to launch her eponymous brand, “this context gives life to creations that are more independent, singular and conscious. And I believe that most creatives who have chosen to create in this town have in reality refused to be part of a certain artistic production system that you find in towns like Paris.”
Since Marseille is only a straight three-and-a-half-hour shot down from Paris on the TGV high speed railway, it's well worth the trip to see why Simon Porte Jacquemus proclaimed “Marseille je t'aime” with his first book and staged his first men's show there in 2018.
With an average of 5 million visitors and 300 days of sunshine a year, there's no shortage of places to stay in Marseille for every budget and every facet of the “city with 111 neighborhoods,” as it is also known.
Since the sea is the star here, Les Bords de Mer is ideally located in the Corniche district and just off the Plage des Catalans beach. This 19-room 1930s property is now part of the Domaines de Fontenilles hospitality group and has been restored to its former glory with only one idea in mind: maximizing the sensational seafront experience.
Don't dawdle if you want to wake up right on the rocks: there are only eight rooms at achingly hip Tuba Club, a “beach bungalow” in the 8th arrondissement founded by Greg Gassa, Fabrice Denizot and their “gang of friends.” This coastal '70s glam address with a sun-kissed color palette of whites, yellows and sage green has been namechecked among Jacquemus' favorite addresses in town.
Maison Juste may be a 200-year-old townhouse five minutes away from the Vieux-Port, but a thoroughly contemporary experience awaits inside. While its 18 rooms have been smartly appointed, the owners, a pair of hospitality industry veterans who wanted to break away from the codes they'd known their entire professional lives, offer a streamlined home-away-fromhome experience. Check-in and room keys are accessible through a smartphone app, and communal spaces are meant to be shared with friends or other guests.
And for a truly unique experience, there's Maison Empereur. On the second floor of a building that is home to this 196-year-old hardware and home goods store reputed to be the oldest in France, the owner's fourroom apartment-cum-back office is available to rent for the night. Take a moment to rifle through the archives, catalogues and old photographs curated by the original owner's descendants who still own the store, or simply while away the time on its terrace.
What to See
As the oldest city in France, Marseille can rightfully claim to straddle thousands of years of human history and has all the museums to prove it, starting with Cosquer Méditerranée. The cave is submerged in a creek near Cape Morgiou and is a scrupulously conserved historical monument. This replica housed in the Villa Méditerranée building opened in 2022 in the heart of the city to offer a glimpse of the engravings and paintings that date back to the Paleolithic era.
Nodding to Marseille's position as a major node on
the Mediterranean, the Mucem (short for Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean) opened in 2013 as the first museum solely dedicated to this crucible of civilization and cross-cultural exchanges, treated through a multidisciplinary approach that blends anthropology, history, archeology and art.
Tapping into the Mucem's textile collection that counts thousands of traditional costumes from around Europe and the Mediterranean basin, the “Fashion Folklore” exhibition that will run from July 12 to Nov. 6 will connect the dots between folkloric dress and the work of couture designers.
And its building designed by architect Rudy Ricciotti, in collaboration with colleague Roland Carta, is a marvel unto itself thanks to an exterior dressed in a graphic concrete trellis inspired by coral. Don't forget to grab a bite at one of the museum's eateries, helmed by the city's culinary star Gérald Passedat.
Among other highlights of the city are the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica, one of Marseille's best-known features that's visible from nearly every part of the city; the Chateau d'If, the “French Alcatraz”; the Palais Longchamp, home to the city's natural history and art museums, and the Palais Pharo, built by French Emperor Napoléon III for his wife, Empress Eugénie. Closer to modern times, the Cité Radieuse built by French architect Le Corbusier was erected as a post-World War II proof-of-concept for a city that could thrive out of concrete modules. Now it's one of the city's most sought-after addresses.
After a four-year and 5 million euro facelift, the MAC contemporary art museum of Marseille reopened in ►
April with a revamped building, an exhibition dedicated to Italian artist Paola Pivi running until August, and a rehang featuring 130 pieces in the museum's 650-strong collection, including works by Louise Bourgeois, JeanMichel Basquiat and Niki de Saint Phalle.
For street art enthusiasts, the Cours Julien is a must-see and the starting point to explore a colorful neighborhood that's rife with striking murals, as well as trendy cafés, restaurants and stores.
Meanwhile, nature-inclined visitors will not want to miss the dozens of calanques, the ever-picturesque inlets with steep limestone cliffs dotted along the city's 57 kilometers of coastline.
What to Savor
Ask any French person for a culinary specialty hailing from Marseille and bouillabaisse, the Provençal soup made of fish once considered too ugly to be served whole, will be high on the list. A cornerstone of the Vallon des Auffes fishing haven, Chez Fonfon has been perpetuating this traditional dish and other classics, like the “petits farcis” stuffed vegetables, for four generations.
That said, the city's restaurant scene is thriving. Not only does it have its homegrown luminaries like threeMichelin-starred Passedat and Alexandre Mazzia, and vivacious Coline Faulquier, who got her first star for her restaurant Signature, but it's also drawing Parisian hospitality heavyweights down south.
Take the Moma Group, which owns the historic Lapérouse restaurant in Paris, which has opened two addresses in town. First up is Forest, under the direction of chef Julien Sebbag. If his concept for Paris was a “post-apocalyptic bunker where the memory of nature is tentatively being saved,” this address in Marseille dressed by architectural studio Uchronia in terra-cotta tones is all about nature and local produce in dishes meant to reflect Marseille's many facets.
Among the highlights of the menu are his sage-butter candle on a dish of beetroot and almond hummus, mezcal-flambéed mushrooms, a well-trafficked crudo bar and Sebbag's favorite challah breads, sourced from the city's reputed T65 bakery.
Virtually next door in La Major is the Marseille outpost of South American concept Andia. Decorated by Alexis Mabille, this 150-seat address was imagined as a jungle that sprouted under the arcades below the Sainte-MarieMajeure cathedral, with flora and fauna bursting prettily from every surface and spilling out onto an alfresco area that nods to Mediterranean gardens. From Thursday to Saturday, its second service will have party vibes, and a weekend brunch will be added in the fall.
And if you have time to spare, why not take a day trip to La Baie des Singes, a long-standing seaside restaurant a 45-minute car ride from the city center. There, fish is grilled fresh out of the sea and there's a private beach ideal for enjoying the sun, azure waters and stunning karst cliff-faces.
Where to Sip
With as many picturesque nooks and crannies-with-a-view as Marseille has, you won't have trouble finding one to drink your fill of the city with a glass in hand. Ease into your own list at the historic Vieux-Port where there's the Rowing Club,
giving a 360-degree vista of the Mucem, the old harbor entrance and the Trois Forts area from its rooftop, and the Bar de la Marine, rumored to be the setting for many of French novelist Marcel Pagnol's Marseille-based stories and immortalized on the silver screen in British romcom “Love Actually.” Upscale cocktail bar Capian, in the city's Intercontinental hotel, is another option that offers an expansive view all the way to the NotreDame de la Garde basilica.
But to get a full taste of the free-spirited, multifaceted hubbub of Marseille, it would be Maison des Nines, the latter word meaning “young women” in the Provençal regional language. It refers to founders Estelle Billet, Annaëlle N'Koua and Claire Lombard, who ditched promising careers in Paris to transform an abandoned bakery into a buzzing hub that's at once a coffee shop-slash-canteen, a fashion and beauty store, a party spot and now a trendy wine bar.
Between June and August, there's also Le Toit-terrasse, literally “the rooftop” in French, an 85,000-square-foot open air space atop La Friche la Belle de Mai, a multiuse cultural space once one of France's largest tobacco factories. Locals come for a drink and stay for the concerts, open-air cinema and all manners of achingly cool parties that go long into the night.
And for those who want a caffeine top-off, specialist coffee roaster and café Brûlerie Möka is a gem worth locating in the Camas neighborhood, just minutes away from the Vieux-Port.
Where to Shop
There are plenty of places to shop in Marseille and top of the list is Jogging, founded in 2014 by photographer Olivier Amsellam and Charlotte Brunet, a marketing veteran who was a crucial contributor to Marseille's election as 2013 European capital of culture.
The pair, who hail from the region, wanted to bring fashion, food and art together in a singular space, housed in a former butcher's shop left nearly as they found it. At the time the only place to find the likes of Jacquemus, Marine Serre or Charlotte Chesnais, it now offers a list that goes from JW Anderson to emerging brands like Nensi Dojaka and Phileo.
Jogging has since branched out into gastronomy with a restaurant that opened in 2016, a grocery store with products made within 200 kilometers of the shop and a guest house in the Calanque de Samena since 2020.
Being by the sea is a great excuse to head to De Moussac and
Grandemenge's first store, a 550-square-foot boudoir with pastel pink waxed concrete and honey-toned wood walls with touches of brass that nod to La
Nouvelle's signature golden Lurex detail.
And of course, if time allows, an appointment at the Gomis studio is in order, to snag one of her tailored gabardine sarouel trousers, a chic interpretation of the loose North African garment, one of her painstakingly hand-embroidered pieces, or a fun summer piece in a swirling snail print.
Tapping into her multicultural heritage in France and Senegal as well as previous experiences in Paris, London and working alongside Beirut-based designer George Hobeika (remember that Beyoncé look for the “Lion King” promotion?), Gomis is all about finely detailed daywear that is made locally using responsible textiles.
And don't forget the one item easy to slip in any suitcase: Marseille soap. Savonnerie Fer à Cheval, a 160-yearold producer that still uses traditional cauldron-based soapmaking methods, is among the favorites. Grab one of their bars at Maison Empereur if you're staying there (and they're available at plenty more retailers in the city), but a particularly cute option is the cicada-shaped soap created collaboration with local ceramics atelier Monochromic.