It’s not a bad issue to have, but, if anything, Provence has just too much choice of great quality food. You’d need months or even years to scratch the surface of the list of fine dining, Michelin-recommended, and starred restaurants. This is to be expected in a region with the perfect mélange of conditions – Mediterranean climate, mistral winds, and 300 days of sunshine each year – and where seasonality is adhered to like gospel. It’s a region where the stalwarts of French cooking are revered and upheld, but where plenty of fresh, new disruptors are entering the industry and reimagining the classics.
We travel to Marseille, the region’s capital, to visit a perfect example of this contrast between classic cooking and innovation in action. The fact that Signature by Coline Faulquier bears the name of its Head Chef tells you something about the renown enjoyed by this gastronomic visionary. Faulquier moved to the south of France as a child and so began a love affair with the region’s rich cooking traditions and natural larder. She studied culinary arts at the prestigious Ferrandi school and earned her first Michelin star in 2021.
Notwithstanding the fact that Signature is Michelin-starred (it received one Michelin star in 2024), there’s no grand entrance to speak of. The restaurant is located in Marseille’s 8th arrondissement, not far from the Orange Velodrome, on a narrow side street and next door to a barbershop. The signage is minimal and understated – as is the reception area, which is a narrow hallway with welcome desk. At first glance, this could be mistaken for any run-of-the-mill city centre restaurant.
However, our first interaction with the service staff makes it clear that this won’t be an average experience. Our hostess greets us at the door to take our coats, dressed formally in a suit and with a demeanour that exudes quiet confidence. I ask a question about parking and, rather than just explaining the process, she insists on accompanying me down the street to organise it for me. From the get-go, this team is keen to demonstrate their willingness to go above and beyond for their guests.
Car now securely parked, she leads us past the narrow reception to the dining area – a sunny space as open as it is intimate. On one side, a cosy corner is decorated with hanging plants and wooden tables; the other is a conservatory-type space with bright white tablecloths and a retractable roof, which is open just enough to let in a light breeze and reveal a patch of brilliant blue Provence sky.
Today we will be dining blind, putting our complete trust in Chef Faulquier, who is preparing us a special menu of Signature’s signatures – some of the dishes that feature on the restaurant’s much-loved tasting menu.
In addition to an illustrious culinary career working under the auspices of leading chefs like Jean-Louis Nomicos and Olivier Nasti, Faulquier is something of a household name, having made it to the final of Top Chef (the French version of Masterchef). While she didn’t ultimately win the competition, she earned much respect for her approach to honest cooking and choice to shun typical ‘haute cuisine’ ingredients in favour of high quality local produce.
There is a convivial atmosphere at Signature today, the sun outside making everything feel a little brighter. Perhaps unusually for a Michelin star restaurant, several of the diners who have come for lunch today are families with young teenagers, all of whom are working their way through the tasting menu with enthusiasm. Next to us, a group of friends are enjoying a reunion over a meal.
There is a sense that this is a place to come en famille for a special Sunday lunch every now and again as opposed to somewhere you visit just once.
Repeat visits are also made possible thanks to a very accessible price point; Signature offers four varieties of tasting menu ranging from a three-course discovery menu (lunch only) at €49 all the way to the most adventurous: the eight-course ‘Grande Signature’.
It’s our first time in Marseille, and we’re eager to embark on our own taste discovery, learning about the city through its characteristics flavours.
Signature is proudly marseillais, so it’s the perfect place for our mission. We start off with the most provençal apéritif we can find on the menu, with a Kir Bourguignon-marseillais.
At Signature, everything is the best of the best, and so it’s hardly surprising that the house cocktails have been created by Victor Delpierre, World Champion barista and mixologist. His twist on the classic kir uses a white wine from Bourgogne, swapping out the crème de Cassis for the restaurant’s homemade orange blossom and saffron liqueur. The result is a mystical chartreuse-hued concoction full of flavour.
The amuse-bouche that arrives ahead of the meal is a course in itself. While for many restaurants this small taster can feel like an afterthought or an obligation, at Signature it’s clear to see that the same level of thought and care has gone into creating something a bit special: a small biscuit with a jelly of compté cheese, capers, and balsamic glaze; miniature fillet of smoked mackerel on an almond bavaroise with puffed rice; beignet with a filling of olive tapenade, anchovies and topped with an almond crisp.
The bread is a homemade fougasse, fresh and warm, served with a rich olive oil produced by one of the many olive farms in the region.
Unexpectedly, Signature also boasts a gourmet list of herbal infusions, which sits proudly alongside the cocktail menu. We sip on a warm fennel and orange infusion between courses – a very different sort of palate cleanser.
In an unfortunate turn of events, one of our party has contracted a sickness bug and is too unwell to eat any of the food. The team at Signature respond to this situation with genuine care, offering to prepare a host of alternatives. The restaurant only serves premium brand soft drinks (even the water is of local provenance, from nearby Aix-en-Provence), but are only too happy to visit a nearby corner shop to pick up a Diet Coke – desperate times call for desperate measures – which comes served with the same attention to presentation as everything else on the menu.
Those of us without sickness are eating for two, moving on to the entrée, which brings together poached eggs in a milk of white asparagus, flavoured with mustard seeds, fresh herbs and petits pois. The poached eggs are a thing of art, a perfectly orange yolk oozing from its firm white casing and mixing together with the asparagus. The mustard seeds and sprinkling of paprika neutralise the creaminess with a welcome kick.
A word on Aïoli
There are few recipes more synonymous with Marseille than aïoli: the moreish garlic cream garnish that, when made well, easily stands alone as the star ingredient in a dish. Aïoli is said to originate as far back as the Roman and Egyptian times, and the name comes from a mix of Occitanie (south west France) and Catalan languages. Different regions prepare it in different ways, and the marseillais version favours the use of egg, which brings it closer in style to mayonnaise. Such a recognised part of the culture, it’s even cited in a local phrase, “faire monter l’aïoli”, meaning to bring a festive atmosphere.
Aïoli is the main character in the next dish that’s placed in front of us, which our waiter explains is Chef Faulquier’s signature, and one that viewers of Top Chef might recognise as her entry in the final of the competition.
It’s a piece of art almost too good to eat: a colourful mosaic of perfectly cubed vegetables, arranged in a rectangular block and cemented together by a mousse of hake. On top, a thin layer of bread crisp and curls of wafer-thin carrot and ink-dyed tuile. The aïoli is served two ways: both as a dollop of cream garnish and in a scoop of ice cream, which packs a serious punch.
Everything is served in just the right quantity so as to avoid an overload of spice, and this particular dish also comes with a miniature shot of homemade ginger beer to balance the strength of the garlic.
This signature dish is offered as an optional extra course to any tasting menu, and we hear impressed exclamations from surrounding tables as the patchwork masterpiece arrives.
To accompany our main meat course, we order a glass of red wine from Corsican winery Domaine Alzipratu, so light and clean that it could easily be enjoyed without food as an apéritif. There are few combinations more satisfying than pork with fresh green herbs, and this is no exception – a perfectly round medallion, spread with a layer of watercress mousse. The first bite is heaven: succulent meat and spring-fresh herbs.
The medallion is paired with a tangy lemon foam (again, the combination of citrus and fresh herbs recalling the quinessential flavours of Provence), dollops of mint and pea mousse and small tears of panisse – a classic marseillais baked snack made from chickpeas (from the same family as niçois socca), brought to the city by Italian immigrants who came to work in the factories of l’Estaque. The Signature version is delicately laced with thyme.
The service is discreet and guests are made to feel comfortable and relaxed. We return from the bathroom to find that our napkin, which we haphazardly left in a crumpled pile on the table, has been quietly refolded into a neat triangle.
If there’s one thing France knows how to do exceptionally well, it’s the cheeseboard, which is usually wheeled to the table for guests to see what’s on offer and select a few to try.
Signature’s cheeseboard is slightly less expansive than those we’ve seen at other restaurants, as they’ve opted instead for a selection of house favourites, which are described by our waiter with expertise and served with a white-gloved hand.
Three of the cheeses we try bear the prestigious AOP (appellation d’origine protégée) title: a subtle roquefort, a Swiss gruyère, and a goat’s cheese with the consistency of brie but the unmistakable chalkiness of the region’s speciality. The cheese course also offers a variety of accompaniments; we choose fresh figs (divine with the roquefort) and a homemade cranberry and noisette loaf, which pairs beautifully with the creamy goat’s cheese.
The afternoon sun is out in all its glory, and the atmosphere at Signature is breezy and relaxed. The families continue to work their way through the tasting menu, animatedly discussing each course as it arrives.
The presentation of the dessert is another piece that merits discussion: a wreath of thin biscuit, decorated with spheres of dark chocolate, puffs of mint-flavoured cream, and drizzled with edible flowers, noisettes, and – curiously – sprigs of dill. A satisfying tap with a spoon cracks open the chocolate balls to reveal a filling of verbena-flavoured mousse.
As with most of the dishes on the menu, part of the fun is dissecting the form and playing mix-and-match with the layers of flavour. Despite the complexity, this dessert is light and fresh – an ideal selection for spring.
Afternoon service is rolling to a close and soon the staff will begin preparation for dinner. To finish, coffee served with petit fours; and, of course, even these small additions are given Chef Faulquier’s special touch. In this case, it’s a homemade honey madeleine served with jam from nearby Cassis.
Before we leave, Coline Faulquier takes a moment away from her busy kitchen to greet us, and the first thing she does is express concern about my guest’s sickness. It is clear even from this brief interaction that Signature is her baby, and that she’s passionately involved in every detail. No dish is less significant than the others, and we find ourselves wondering how she finds the time to put this level of time and effort into every course, amuse bouche and petit four. With this in mind, she gets back to the kitchen to continue prepping.
Leaving the restaurant feels like travelling through the looking glass, as we find ourselves back on this nondescript side street in central Marseille. From here, it’s difficult to imagine that through these doors exists culinary alchemy in action; artistic concoctions and sophisticated pairings, all served with a subtle smile and in sunny surroundings.
We ate
the lunch tasting menu of the day, which included:
three different amuse bouche
homemade bread and olive oil
poached egg, asparagus cream, chives and almond fricassée
pork mignon with thyme panisse, white asparagus and watercress gel
Signature’s speciality aïoli
verbena mousse in dark chocolate with mint cream and crumble
cheese plate from the region
We drank
Kir bourguignon-marseillais
orange and fennel infusion
Iniziu Corsican red grenache from Domaine Alzipratu
The Moyenne Signature menu is priced at €125, with the option to add four matched wines for an additional €56.
This was a press visit – all opinions are our own.
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