The story
Belle de Mars is a modern bistro at 56 rue de Forbin in Marseille, France, and it holds one Michelin star (2026) for high quality cooking. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner, with tasting menus that run from fish and shellfish to vegetarian courses.
Kim-Mai Bui, formerly of Petit Nice and Ourea, and Michel Marini, formerly of Lasserre and Ze Kitchen Galerie in Paris, cook together in the kitchen. Le Fooding describes their blind tasting menus as sharp yet affordable, with each course flowing into the next. The house style leans on wild herbs and flowers that the team picks itself.
One meal reviewed by Le Fooding opened with a fish soup flan under a bouillabaisse espuma, followed by Mediterranean tuna sashimi with a pickled rose petal. Later courses included porcini mushroom agnolotti with a porcini mousse, and flash-seared little tunny served with a grey shrimp sauce and seaweed jam. Dessert was poached pear under crushed bergamot meringue.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
High quality cooking
We knew Belle de Mai, the artsy neighborhood adjacent to the Saint-Charles train station, whose name pays homage to its past glory, and more specifically to the contest in which a lucky girl would be crowned queen with a wreath of white flowers… Now meet Belle de Mars, a rather austere neo-bistro with brand-new parquet flooring, softly iridescent globe light fixtures and utterly nude walls. But from their show-stopping kitchen, Kim-Mai Bui (ex-Petit Nice and Ourea) and Michel Marini (ex-Lasserre and Ze Kitchen Galerie in Paris) serve blind tasting menus that are sharp yet still affordable, as the various courses flow seamlessly into one another. Take the other night as an example: a textural fish soup flan camouflaged under a bouillabaisse espuma, then Mediterranean tuna sashimi caressed by a pickled rose petal for the amuse-bouche; razor-thin slices of radish dipped in an incredible ginger and lemongrass sauce, all topped with bottarga shavings; a duo of warm, plump oysters covered in clementine sabayon; a candy-like al dente porcini mushroom agnolotti with a porcini mushroom mousse; flash-seared Mediterranean little tunny, served with a powerful grey shrimp sauce and seaweed jam; before a graphically pleasing dessert, poached pear hidden under crushed bergamot meringue – an earth-shatteringly good combination! // Meriadec Chouchen
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