Ask any self-respecting food lover about culinary hotspots in the buzzing seaside city of Marseille, and their recommendations will be endless and eclectic. For fans of three-Michelin-star fare (and a bouillabaisse that won over Anthony Bourdain), there’s Le Petit Nice Passedat. Or you could try the mouthwatering pizza at Chez Etienne, plates of steaming North African delights at Les Délices du Maroc, knockout natural wine at Les Buvards… Now, locals and tourists alike have one more destination to add to their list: the just-opened café and art community hangout Cécile Food Club.
Being the brainchild of Texas-born model Erin Wasson and her French husband Barth Tassy, it’s fashionable in more ways than one. Wasson and Marseille native Tassy met at a gay bar in Venice when they both lived in L.A., but always found themselves drawn to the calanques of the South of France. “The plan was always to get to Marseille and build something here,” she says. The couple, who married in Austin in 2018, has lived in Marseille for almost two years, a period when Tassy—a lifelong restaurateur—and Wasson were inspired by what she affectionately terms the “rock hounds” of the city, people who sit and get “salty and sunny” on its craggy Malmousque coastline all day long. “People are there morning to night,” Wasson says. “But there was nothing available for them during the daytime hours.”
Enter Cécile Food Club, a café with a sunkissed brown-and-yellow awning and a diverse menu that encompasses both the idiosyncratic cooking of Marseille and healthier plant-based cuisine, inspired by Wasson’s own vegan diet. “It’s about walking into a space where you can eat something familiar,” Tassy says. The café caters to everyone, whether they’re looking for a caffeine fix, a sundown aperitif, or a sit-down meal—inspired by the hosting skills of Tassy’s late grandmother Cécile. “There was always a great vibe at her place,” he says. “The fridge was always full.”
Tassy enlisted the help of childhood friend Paul Langlère in the kitchen; the esteemed chef climbed the ranks of fine dining institutions in Paris and trained at the Plaza Athénée before relocating to Marseille to open his restaurant Sepia in 2017. Another lifelong friend with an events background, Thibault Hillmeyer, is the café’s fourth founding member. Together with “food informant” Wasson—whose Instagram Stories are often awash with delectable vegan cooking—they have devised a roster of dishes that run the gamut from sandwiches stuffed with egg, smoked eel, and herbs to sardines grilled with ricotta, mint, and lardo. Takeaway produce from the sanded counter includes rillettes, olive oil, and pesto, too.
When it came time to think about the interiors, Wasson and Tassy worked with the Paris-based, Marseille-born architect Marion Mailaender to conceive a look inspired by ’60s grocery stores: minimalist yet warm, with bespoke lighting and sconces, striped banquettes and geometric flourishes inspired by French artist Claude Rutault. “Mixing glitter into floor cement sounds insane,” Wasson says of one sparkling detail, “but when you’re inside the space, it provides a certain visual anecdote.”
For all the latest fasion News Click Here
