Bouillabaisse in Marseille

Bouillabaisse began as what the Marseille fishermen kept back: the bony rockfish nobody would buy, boiled hard with fennel, saffron and orange peel. It is now the most expensive thing on the menu in the city that invented it. Done properly it arrives in two stages, the broth first with croutons, grated cheese and rouille, a garlic and chilli paste stirred in until the soup turns rust-coloured, then the fish carried back whole and filleted at the table. Which fish belong in it is argued about endlessly, and a group of restaurants signed a charter in 1980 to fix the rules. It takes two hours to eat and is normally ordered a day in advance.

What you actually see

• The two services - broth and rouille first, the fish filleted afterwards.
• Rouille - garlic, chilli and olive oil stirred into the soup.
• The rockfish - rascasse and its neighbours, bony and specific to this coast.
• The morning fish market - the night's catch sold straight off the quay.

When to go

Served through the year, though winter suits it better than a hot evening. Order twenty-four hours ahead almost anywhere serious, and expect a minimum of two people. Lunch is a lighter time to attempt it than dinner. The quayside fish market runs early every morning and is worth seeing before eating the result.

Honest expectations

The cheap bouillabaisse advertised on boards around the tourist quays is a different dish made from frozen fish, and the gap between that and the real one is enormous. The real one costs as much as a full restaurant meal elsewhere and takes a whole evening. The fish are bony, the rouille is aggressively garlicky, and the quantity defeats most people.

Nearby

The limestone inlets south of the city, the old quarter above the port and the hill villages of the Provencal interior.