“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” When reading the recipes that Marseillais cherish one quickly understands they are the fruit of centuries of cultural intermingling that have influenced the city’s culinary traditions. This diversity of Marseille and its cuisine is what Culinary Backstreets wants travellers to taste on its food tours.
In 2009, two Americans, Ansel Mullins and Yigal Schleifer, created a blog called Istanbul Eats. In 2010, they published a culinary guide to Istanbul and launched the city’s first tour centered around the local gastronomy, an itinerary that they still follow today. Realizing that their walks were necessary in other cities that they knew and loved, they created other routes in Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City, and Shanghai in 2012 and Culinary Backstreets was born.
During a press trip in 2018, American journalist and former Love Spots contributor, Alexis Steinman, was invited to check out Culinary Backstreet’s Lisbon food tour. “At first, I refused because I expected a super-cliché itinerary. But the team convinced me.”
“I spent six unforgettable hours. I learned more about Lisbon, its cuisine, and its history than I would if I had spent several weeks there!”
Recognizing that this type of tour needed to be done in Marseille to help tourists understand this singular city, she invited one of Culinary Backstreets’ founders to visit. “In two hours, he fell in love with our city, its multicultural makeup, its heritage, and it’s diverse cuisine.”
Alexis launched the walks in October 2019. After a complicated period due to Covid – the US borders were closed – there was enough demand to hire another guide, Chloé, a Marseillaise urbanist. Two others have reinforced the team since April 2022: Jenine, a Palestinian-American writer and Séverine, a Marseillaise who teaches tourism and collective intelligence. Three cultured and passionate people!
“The point of the tours is not to stuff ourselves. We use food to tell stories about the city and to paint an authentic portrait.”
In addition to cuisine, the guides discuss culture, politics, history, and architecture on the walks. The clients leave with a better understanding of Marseille and long-lasting memories! Intended for tourists and foreigners at first, the tours now also interest locals.
The current walk, Beyond Bouillabaisse: Diving Into Marseille’s Multicultural Stew, starts at the top of the Gare Saint-Charles staircase and ends with a pastis at Bar la Caravelle. En route, clients visit an Armenian supermarket, discover Senegalese pastels, taste Jewish-Tunisian pastries, and many other delights.
Alexis has countless anecdotes to share, like during her first tour when, super nervous, she was quickly put at ease when her clients, Canadian tourists, handed out maple syrup candies at every stop in exchange for the makrouts, canistrellis, pastels, and figatelli.
“This spirit of sharing is the reason Culinary Backstreets exists, and for me, it is the basis of cooking and eating!”
Another memory is when, during a stop in front of a concrete frieze that illustrates the legend of Gyptis and Protis, the founding story of Marseille, one of the building’s residents invited Alexis and her clients up to his apartment. “My clients were surprised by the warm welcome, especially after having heard so many negative things about Marseille.”
The little extra: Find tips on where to dine and interesting articles on Marseille’s food scene on Culinary Backstreet’s website.
By Eric Foucher
