Bouillabaisse is a fish soup that any gourmand or gourmet has probably eaten somewhere. However, the Marseille version is reputed to be the true one and chefs there have access to fish that you cannot get elsewhere, at least not nearly as easily. This Greek origin dish has been made for hundreds of years and is typified by the fish being cooked whole in the saffron base and being served with rouille (a garlic mayonnaise with saffron and a little chili peppers whose name means "rust", probably as that describes its color well). The rouille can be eaten various ways but it is recommended to slather croutons with it before dipping into the broth and eating. See: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouillabaisse
I phoned from Canada for 10 days in a row before finally getting a lunch reservation at chez Michel in Marseille. The internet yielded a couple of restaurant websites, reviews on the Michelin site and on TripAdvisor and each had a different phone number. My old hard copy of the Michelin Guide had praise but also yet another phone number. I called them all and eventually got through on the number listed on TripAdvisor and got a 12:30 p.m. reservation for lunch. Going to Marseille was a detour from my planned travel from Nice to Avignon so I wasn't going to go without a reservation, but dammit I wanted to go!
We left Nice and needed to get on the AutoRoute to Marseille so had to go North. Cristina kept us going North and I thought Cristina was getting us to Marseille. She was only focussed on getting us North and thought I was getting us to Marseille. After some 40 or 50 kms. going North I stopped and looked at the map. Cristina pointed out where we were. We were 35 or 45 kms North of the AutoRoute. So we headed back along the small road and had lost so much time we really had to hurry. Luckily the ugly car we had rented had no problem going 160 kms/hr. Cristina kept asking me to slow down but I just replied that it's either keep up the speed or not bother going to Marseille for the bouillabaisse. She knew what that meant and clutched the hand grip over the passenger door and hung on gamely.
We phoned ahead to warn of our late arrival (they told us to be there by 1:30 P.M. or not bother coming). Despite the misdirection of our GPS and the fact it turned itself off 15 minutes before reaching our destination (I think it considered us to have already arrived--it was colluding with the waiters at chez Michel), I managed to find the place and dropped off Cristina while looking for parking. A big P promised parking up ahead but then there was no big P showing where to turn to find the parking when you got there. After circling around twice I decided to do a U turn and double my tracks and that gave me sight of the furtive big P and found the underground parking.
Meanwhile Cristina ordered two bouillabaisse and by the time I jogged in a bottle of a white Cassis was open and Cristina was sipping it from her glass. I just poured one for me and looked at the label. I had told Cristina to order a white Cassis which is from a nearby appellation to the restaurant and goes well with bouillabaisse. She had ordered the 2012 Cassis Blanc de Blanc from E. Bodin. It had an acidic, tart even but clean taste of citrus fruits that even improved on the palate after swallowing and the aftertaste had significant length. It had a generous smooth wet stone minerality that added to the ways this wine complemented white fish and would also do so with seafood. It was a beauty. 50+5+12+16+7=90 points from this reviewer.
Our Bouillabaise was made with 4 of the classic fish to be used for this dish and they were shown to us beforehand.
They were the St. Pierre (John Dory) in the middle of the photo on the right, with the Rascasse on the left, Vive to the right and Galinette (Red Mullet) on the far right. For the dish to succeed Michel believes that you need to exclude all shellfish from the dish (except for an optional addition of a langoustine) and to stich to local coastal fish. The fish are cooked whole, head and all and all (after being scaled and cleaned) but are fileted and served on the side with potatoes cooked in the stock as well. Here our waiters prepare to serve the dish while extra stock keeps warm on a burner on the side.
Bouillabaisse is flavoured with saffron and thickened with tomatoes and a little chili and perhaps this one had modest amounts of other spice. It is served with croutons and bread (slices of rustic baguette) and the thick orangey yellow slices of potato. On the side were both a Rouille and a white, garlic aioli. If you don't like garlic, skip this dish. There are huge amounts of garlic in the dips. But I found the results delicious. Cristina did too.
I liked dollops of the rouille in the soup and started by eating the fish on the side. However I soon adopted Cristina's technique to bathe the potato or fish in the soup, and to add spoonfuls of Rouille or the Aioli on the morsels before eating with the soup. I found the croutons a distraction but the pieces of the wood oven baked baguette a welcome addition to the dish.
I had smelled fish and cooking fish as soon as I had stepped from the car in the parking garage 3 blocks away from Michel's which is on the waterfront just beside the Pharo Palace which was constructed by Napoleon. Inside Michel's the place smells of wonderful cooked fish and garlic. The walls are lined with paintings showing waiters in the traditional white jerseys with the horizontal blue stripes serving fish in berets. The berets are now gone but the place otherwise is very much the same as it was when it opened in 1946 when the Germans stopped eating all the fish from the Mediterranean. Now they have to line up and pay like everyone else.
See these websites for more about Michel's:
http://www.restaurant-michel-13.fr/presentation
http://www.kelrestaurant.com/restaurant-13-1518-restaurant_chez_michel.html
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