Editor’s note: We are very happy to be able to add Marseille to the growing list of cities CB is covering. Our coverage of that city’s deep and fascinating culinary scene begins today, with our report on Marseille’s State of the Stomach. On the Rue d’Aubagne, Tunisian men dunk bread into bowls of leblebi – a garlicky chickpea soup – as scooters dash by. A dashiki-clad Senegalese woman plucks cassava from the produce market to fry up for lunch. Dusted in flour, Lebanese brothers make falafel sandwiches with pita still warm from their bakery’s oven. A boy buys an Algerian bradj – a date-stuffed semolina bar – to snack on after school as Maghrebi teens in track pants sell single “Marl-bo-ros.” This multicultural montage unfolds along the main artery of the Noailles neighborhood, known as the “belly of Marseille” for its abundant edible offerings and central location.

“Those who don’t know Etienne, don’t know Marseille,” insists a French weekly in a piece about the cult pizzeria. They were raving about both place, Chez Etienne, and person, the enigmatic Etienne Cassaro, who transformed the worker’s canteen his Sicilian dad opened in 1943 into a local institution that endures today. Though Etienne’s light went out in 2017, his son, Pascal, continues to carry the family torch – alongside a long-standing staff who have been there for decades. Aptly located in the equally mythical Le Panier quartier, Chez Etienne is home-style cooking served in a homey setting. Inside a convivial room divided by stone archways, the tables are packed with regulars, tourists and politicians from nearby city hall (including Mayor Gaudin) who tuck their ties in their shirt to keep them from getting splattered with pizza grease.

Around this time of year, the smell of dough frying fills the air on a side street off Marseille’s busy Rue de Rome. The source of the enticing scent is Patisserie Avyel, a small kosher bakery and salon de thé in the midst of preparing for Hanukkah, which began on the evening of December 22. For Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, Jews often make fried treats to commemorate the miraculous oil that kept a lamp burning for eight days instead of one in the rededicated Temple in Jerusalem some 2,200 years ago. Latkes – potato pancakes – might be the best-known Hanukkah food, but frying up dough is another popular tradition, with these holiday “doughnuts” varying by geography.