Restaurant Michel — Restaurant in Marseille

2nd visit to Chez Michel, and it still impressed me ! My first visit was in 2016 when I first solo travelled to Marseille. It made me fell in love with bouillabaisse and I have since tried to remake it at home afew times.

Decided to bring my visiting friends last week, and it was exactly how I remembered it.

Service was top, the staffs were super friendly. I was abit nervous at first after reading many really bad reviews. I guess we would never really know the other side of the story.

Normally, we can't finish a single portion of bouillabaisse each. The portion is ridiculous, unless you can eat at least 3 fishes per person. We much prefer to share, and we felt we were "judged" from the other popular competitor restaurant (Chez FF).

Over here at Chez Michel, the owner offered to do 2 portion of bouillabaisse plus 1 portion of grilled fish to be shared among 4 persons; and for starters, 3 portion of fried squid to share. The fact that the owner recommended me made it very pleasant for us. In the end, the food portion was still more than we can eat, but at least we finished all the fish (we still overate).

On the food, the fried squid was heavenly, the batter was lightly, seasoning was perfect, in the mouth, it has just abit of crisp, not heavily oiled, and the squid inside was cooked perfectly ! The bouillabaisse was much better than Chez FF (which was abit fishy in my memory), and they portioned the serving to ensure the soup we had in front of us is always warm, which was super thoughtful. The flavour profile in the soup, lots of tomatoes, olive oil, hint of saffron, and the mouth feel, velvety but not oily. The grilled fish was cooked perfectly, but the highlight was the extra virgin olive oil drizzle on the top. I really wanted to ask where he sourced his EVOO !! It was so good !!

The final bill came up to 305EUR including 3 glasses of wine. Was it worth the money ? Probably not. Was it the best bouillabaisse I had ? Yes hands down ! Only because I feel the one I make is 80% there (shameless me). Would I come back again on my own ? Likely not. Would I bring visitors if they want to try good...

Very rude staff, maybe it is just the one but we have barely interacted with others so can’t really comment. The one we encountered was in his T-shirt and his untrimmed facial hair, whom we at first thought we was just a homeless man instead of a staff, he was asking us something we did not understand in French, so we politely ask what he was referring to but he was extremely rude, he then escalated his emotion and kept yelling at us, mixing with the “f” word in English, we suspect he was unhappy with us blocking his view (which we still could not understand what exactly did he mean)? he also threatened to call the police but as a lawyer I cannot see any legal ground (and of course he knew it, so he just merely brought the phone out without dialling even I said I was happy for him to do so), especially we were the foreigners being bullied unilaterally and at that time we had left the restaurant area and being on the public pavement. If you have any message to relay please politely deliver, or ask other member of staff to convey but not yelling like a psyche. This was definitely not something I would expect to happen in this restaurant, basic manner training is...

Disapointing. The boullabaisse was okay, but nothing amazing, and its price was ridiculously high. In general, the location and facility is no match to their price list. At the owner's recommendation, we had shrimp as appetizer. No flavor, which made sense once we were told they are farmed and came from Brittany (there are delicious local wild shrimp, I cooked some I bought at a market days later). We got kind apologies from the owner but still got charged for the shrimp we returned. The house special desert (millefeuille) was not much better than what you get at the local bakery. This restaurant was recommended to us as the place to go for a boullabaisse in Marseille. It probably once was good, but it's now little more than an overpriced tourist trap. Upon sharing our frustrasting experience with family members, we realized some of our relatives had a similar experience. I cannot...