Marseille Bouillabaisse

Menu fish soup

55 euro a person

Kir of welcome

- fish soup of rock "house" with its croutons, its rust, and its cheese grates

- fish of the fish soup:

6 varieties of fish: (scorpion fish, white scorpion fish, st stone, galinette, lives, conger)

Accompany with potatoes, favouilles, and water(spray) with a bottom of fish soup.

- Cake store(pastry) house (fondant, tarts, tiramisu)

- coffee

- wine: 1 bottle of hillside of Provence for 4 persons

The totality of the fish of the fish soup will be presented to you believed and marinades in the saffron.

Bouillabaisse made in-House

(minimum of four people and to order)

Bouillabaisse consists of fish soup which is eaten with spread bread croutons, rouille (spicy mayonnaise) and fish served whole. Our preparation is comprised of 6 varieties of rockfish caught in our Calanques [Marseillais fjords] (redfish, white fish, Saint Pierre, gurnard, weever, conger eels) 500 gms of fish per person with mussels and crabs.

The name of this dish; bouillabaisse in Provençal boui-abaisso means bouille (the fish) and abaisse (to reduce).

As a fish pot-au-feu, bouillabaisse is a traditional fishers’ dish, forever associated with the image of Marseilles. As with all special dishes eaten by groups of people or the family, it stimulates a convivial atmosphere around the table.

Bouillabaisse is one of the gems of Provençal cookery and one of its most known dishes. John Lanchester, English novelist, a great enthusiast for gastronomy, described it thus: “Bouillabaisse's combination of luxuriousness and practicality, of romance and realism, is positable as characteristic of the Marseillais themselves” (John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure, 1997). The dish probably came about in the course of the 19th Century in the fishing community, when the port was booming. On their return from fishing, sailors sorted the fish and put aside for consumption at home those which were unsuitable for sale: disembowelled, flattened and headless fish...

While the nets were being patched up and untangled, fish were put on to boil with seawater in a large pot. Then the cooking juice was poured into bowls where garlic rubbed croutons were placed. Afterwards, everyone would tuck into the fish.

The recipe was subsequently adapted in bourgeois kitchens by the cooks, who were often daughters of fishermen. In order to refine the recipe, they replaced the seawater with stock made from rockfish, reputed for their incomparable flavour. Rockfish? People of Marseilles swear by them, as they find them more salty and iodised than those from the Atlantic.

Bouillabaisse is generally served in two separate dishes: on one side the broth, a delicious soup which is complemented by croutons, spicy mayonnaise or garlic mayonnaise; on the other, the fish, served whole and cut in front of guests. A tip: let the fish be saturated with the cooking stock, they will taste even better...

By G. Rouzeau