Figure | Cave à manger — Restaurant in Marseille

My friend and I did quite a bit of research before coming to Marseille, and Figure appeared on several recommendation lists — from a niche AWA publication to Vogue. Expectations were high, but unfortunately, our experience was quite disappointing.

To start, we were served oysters that were room temperature — already a concern — and heavily seasoned, with condiments pre-loaded into the shells. Despite the toppings, the unpleasant fishiness still came through.

Next, we ordered the "fiore di zucca," which turned out to be one single zucchini flower — surprising, considering the €13 price tag. It was served on a bed of miso and tomato paste that looked and tasted as if it had been scooped straight from the container.

But the most concerning dish was the beef tartare. A small portion of chewy, fatty beef sat in the center of the plate, surrounded by an overwhelming moat of BBQ sauce. The texture was stringy and off-putting — not what you'd hope for in a tartare, which should be delicate and clean.

The atmosphere itself is nice — a small, intimate space with a natural wine selection — but the food simply didn’t deliver. We paid €120 for five small plates and a bottle of wine, left still hungry, and genuinely worried about how our stomachs...

Great food, bad overall experience: would not go back, and cannot recommend.

Staff are not rude (they are nice in fact), they just completely forget about your existence while they serve and chat 1 meter away from you with the clients who are their friends (I saw this complaint in other reviews...).

We had to wait standing outside the restaurant on the street for over half an hour to get our table (we had a reservation!). It took another half an hour to even get a menu to order anything. The only way to order is to basically force the staff to acknowledge you. You have to ask three times for a food/wine menu, because "Of course! I will bring you one right away" means you will not see that person for another 30 minutes...

They forgot half of our order - we ordered 9 plates... we only got 4, over two hours. It was getting so late in the night that we were asked by a clueless staff member what we wanted for dessert - we had to explain to them that we were still waiting for half of the order... We left soon after.

The food was incredible... Go for good food if you don't mind paying a lot of money to wait three hours for a very small amount of food and be totally ignored unless you are a cute-looking...

The food was exquisite and the cuisine was really detailed. The location has nothing special to offer (to be honest it is just placed on a noisy road with no view). The tables are really placed so close to each other that makes moving really difficult. The staff is welcoming but it lacks of organisation. I witnessed the server, at least three times, searching in which table she should leave the order…). The music is terrible and has nothing to add to the expected experience....