URBAN GUIDE

Chefs are spotlighting the flavours of local produce from land and sea.

Never has the relationship between restaurateur and supplier been so close. «Our link with the produce is essential. Here I have a kitchen garden within reach, farmers with lambs and pigeons, apple growers, olive oil producers and the Grau-du-Roi fish market that fosters sustainable fishing. So we’re more than spoilt,» says Armand Arnal at the Chassagnette restaurant. With a wonderful 2ha kitchen garden and four year-round gardeners, Arnal offers diners the very best of the Camargue. «We have to champion local produce and the terroir concept. I don’t see what sense it makes to serve foods from far away, such as yuzu, in a region as rich in flavours as ours is.» Mathias Dandine at the Lodges Sainte-Victoire works with a greengrocer who selects the best «small-farm produce», and regularly calls on Bruno Cayron in Tourves, in the Var, from whom he’s sure to get a supply of 30 to 40 vegetable varieties. «The produce and nothing but the produce, that what terroir means,» says Dandine with insistence. «Technique has to keep in the background, leaving pure tastiness to the fore». The Ruhl restaurant on the corniche has been working with Florent in L’Estaque for 50 years: «His father used to supply my father with fish for the bouillabaisse,» says owner Gabrielle Galligani, «Nana on the Vieux-Port in Marseille and Christine, for sole, sell us their catches. Independent fishermen bring us some exceptional pieces.» When nature sets the rules there’s no need for a chef to cheat!

Les Lodges Sainte-Victoire, 2250 route Cézanne, 13100 Le Tholonet. Tél. 04 42 24 80 40
Le Rhul, 269, corniche J.-F. Kennedy, Marseille, 7e . Tél. 04 91 52 01 77
La Chassagnette, route du Sambuc, 13200 Arles. Tél. 04 90 97 26 96