No. 8 - Georgette, Le Corbusier, Lacaille
A Marseille special - natural wine, brutalist architecture and a stumbled upon bib gourmand
Domaine de la Mongestine Georgette
In what’s becoming a theme on these pages, I’m fresh back from another trip to France. This time to Marseille. Though warned of a slightly shady reputation, bolstered by tunes like this, we found a huge amount to like there. 300 days of sun a year. The stunning coves of the Calanques National Park. Cracking food - from traditional French to Moroccan and Tunisian delights, friendly people, clean and close-by city beaches, and architecture that leaves equivalently sized UK cities wanting.
And luckily for this column, plenty of nice things to drink, including this Georgette wine from Domaine de la Mongestine in Provence. We picked this up from a well known local wine bar near our hotel, Les Buvards, which while we didn’t eat in, was buzzing on the two occasions we swung by.
We didn’t mean to drink the whole bottle, but that’s often what ends up happening when the wine is this satisfying and easy drinking. Made from 100% Vermentino grapes (Rolle in French) with two weeks of skin contact giving it just enough refreshing funk and dryness, and a beautifully long finish. Perhaps that’s it. The long finish makes the next sip all the more tantalising. This is the top white wine produced by Domaine de la Mongestine, and I can see why. It was lush.
Fortunately it’s also available in the UK here. I’ll be scouting it out again.
L’Unite D’habitation - Le Corbusier
Beyond Notre-Dame de la Garde, Le Corbusier’s L’Unite D’habitation is probably Marseille’s most famous building. A colourful, brutalist gem, the building is raised on concrete stilts or ‘piloti’, raising the view for the inhabitants.
Famously conceived by the architect as a ‘machine for living’, the building contains not only duplex apartments which span the full width of the building across an east-west axis (21m in length!), but small offices, studios, shops, a cafe, bar and art gallery. Until 1998, there was also a school on the upper floors. On the rooftop, there’s a paddling pool for children and stunning views across the city.
This type of architecture is loved and hated in equal measure, blamed for inspiring badly designed imitations in cities across the world. But a quick walk round the public areas left me envious of the inhabitants. Services and community-building spaces are incorporated into the fabric of the building, not an afterthought as is so common in modern developments I’ve seen or lived in. It’s amazing that it’s not a formula copied more today. As the desirability of places like this and the Barbican proves, good design will always be attractive.
This article is a great intro to the building - I love this quote:
“What local authorities around the world asked for instead from the 1950s was a form of low-cost, quick-build mass housing that, although superficially influenced by Le Corbusier, was nothing like this gifted architect’s work; it was like wanting a Picasso for the price of a picture postcard.”
Lacaille
Less organised than during a recent trip to Paris, we had nowhere booked for dinner on our Saturday night in Marseille. Grey clouds that had looked threatening while we enjoyed beers on the bo-bo Cours Julien were beginning to look downright menacing, and we’d been turned away with a smile and a “désolé, nous sommes complets” from three places…
We ducked into Lacaille on a wing and a prayer. Thankfully they us found a perch, in a cosy bistro style set up that was beginning to fill up. On closer inspection of the window, it appeared that the inspectors had paid a visit. The ones from the guide with the big man made of tyres. A bib gourmand. Well, that’s lucky, we thought, but high expectations can be a dangerous thing, so let’s see how it goes.
We weren’t disappointed, and with entrees at €12, and plats at €23 it wasn’t bank breaking either. A starter of creamed girolles mushrooms with poached egg, fried girolles and croutons was rich and autumnal, while the tuna terrine with fennel and beetroot shown above was light and fresh and came as a generous mound, perfect for slathering on bread. Main courses were also great - a rare bavette steak with carrot puree and autumn veg and hearty jus, and sea bream with vibrant green pea purée, pomegranate seeds.
As the heavens opened and torrential rain poured outside and Uber surged, we opted for pudding - ‘variations on the fig’ - fig three ways, baked, jammed and fresh, with rings of watermelon, topped with crumble for texture. And more wine. Both good decisions. Service was lovely too - smiley and generous, and as the rain petered out, we made a dash through the rain to the metro and home, feeling lucky, well-fed and watered.
If you’re ever in town, give it a visit, but book.