“Carry on going straight down till you may’t go on anymore. You will attain a really small village; it’s prefer it’s the final village earlier than you attain the tip of the world,” says Pierre, the taxi driver who picks me up from Marseille practice station. As we zip alongside the craggy shoreline of France’s second largest metropolis, he tells me just a little bit about Les Goudes, the place I’m headed, which is a district in south Marseille tucked within the Calanques Nationwide Park, a big rocky stretch of limestone cliffs scattered with coves that extends 200 sq. miles alongside the ocean.
Tuba Membership restaurant with rooms in southern Marseille.
We cease earlier than Les Goudes village in entrance of a small glass door with pastel pink lettering indicating I’ve reached Tuba Club, the restaurant with rooms that is change into a go-to for well-heeled vacationers because it opened in summer season 2020. The small clapboard constructing is combed with a corrugated roof like icing on a cake. Inside, there is a beachy fresco by artist Emmanuelle Luciani of Southway Studio, that leads down the steps, the place I run into Tuba Membership co-founder Greg Gassa and his crew who’re straightening up the restaurant simply earlier than the lunchtime rush.
The Tuba Membership entrance and cooks led by Sylvain Roucayrol and Paul-Henri Bayart.
As I shake his hand, the noon daylight pulls into the room, streaming by big rectangular home windows that run the whole size of the restaurant and look out onto the deep blue Mediterranean Sea. Fishing boats bob up and down on the water earlier than they return to one of many tiny ports tucked in one of many calanques coves.
Cinematic sea views at Tuba Membership, Marseille.
Typically, they cease on the finish of the rocky outcrop in entrance of the restaurant to promote their catch to this season’s new resident cooks, Sylvain Roucayrol, the headman at Caché and Amagat eating places in Paris, and Paul-Henri Bayart, who traded the inventory market in for an apron and a kitchen knife, educated as a chef and landed at Caché, the place he met Sylvain. Now the 2 are placing Tuba Membership on the culinary map because of their menu of well-sourced native fish and greens. “The kind of cooking we do is especially targeted on contemporary fish, so when Greg recommended we come and do a season at Tuba, proper on the ocean, with all of the fantastic produce round, it completely made sense,” says Sylvain in a delicate, delicate Perpignan accent, sipping on glowing water earlier than getting arrange within the kitchen.
Yellow cabana stripe mattresses at Tuba Membership lined up alongside the water.
Outdoors on the terrace overlooking the ocean, the crew of good-natured employees sporting dazzling white Tuba-stamped t-shirts lay out yellow cabana stripe solar mattresses on the rocks already scorching from the noon solar, and line tables up alongside the water tethered by sensible cream fringed umbrellas.
It is likely to be Tuba’s third summer season, but it surely’s their first actual season. “Once we first opened, we needed to shut nearly instantly because of Covid,” says Greg, shaking his head, leaning on a wall, his eyes darting to the ocean by dark-rimmed spherical glasses. “Then final summer season, we could not actually function as we wished to because of restrictions, so this season, is technically our first correct one, and we won’t wait!”
Greg dashes out and in of the restaurant, his longish floppy brown hair flying behind him, a tall lanky determine wearing denim, he’s immediately recognisable, and is aware of the right way to make individuals really feel comfy. “I’ve traveled throughout and used to work in occasions within the style trade,” he says. “However I wished to come back again to Marseille, the place I spent a part of my childhood and create a spot for pals by pals.”
Tuba Membership has 5 rooms designed by Marion Mailaender.
An previous diving faculty the place divers would grasp up their flippers for the night time earlier than heading out to sea within the morning, the constructing was left empty for years earlier than Greg came across it. With the assistance of Marseillais designer Marion Mailaender, one to observe proper now, he turned the constructing into 5 rooms which have a cabin really feel with quirky particulars impressed by Eileen Grey and Le Corbusier’s modernist seaside huts in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, that strike someplace between genius and uniqueness. The result’s a restaurant with rooms that feels prefer it’s all the time been there, simply as it’s.
“We truly first got here out right here to go to the apartment above the diving membership,” explains Greg motioning the constructing with wires poking out the entrance as staff put the ending touches to what can be Tuba’s sundown terrace and three big suites with huge views of nothing however sea and sky, slated to open within the fall. “But it surely was too costly. The proprietor of the apartment instructed us in regards to the previous diving membership right here being up on the market. We purchased it instantly. And a 12 months later, he bought us his residence.”
Sylvain Roucayrol and Paul-Henri Bayart’s signature seabass sashimi at Tuba Membership, Marseille.
Outdoors on the rocks, resident and non-resident visitors decide on mattresses, ice cubes clink in chilly glasses of rosé, and aromas of grilled fish waft by the air tinged with the scent of solar cream, luring me to take my seat at a desk on the water’s edge.
The cooks serve big platters of uncooked greens plucked from gardens close by and plate up fish in so many fantastic ways in which I lose rely. However the one which sticks in my thoughts is the uncooked tender sea bass sashimi rolled again in its pores and skin like fish scales, which is Sylvain’s signature at Caché again at his Paris headquarters. Ensure to additionally order the grilled fish and the Provencal calamari or simply fried with smoky harissa, a nod to Marseille’s combined heritage. Do not miss the cooks’ churros with native biscuits and do-it-yourself light-as-gelato ice cream with vanilla, lavender and lemon toppings, to complete.
Sylvain Roucayrol and Paul-Henri Bayart are making a splash with their contemporary fish dishes at Tuba … [+]
Snooze lunch off stretched out on a yellow mattress by the water in between dips within the brisk swirling waters you may throw your self in from the rocks or glide into from what should be probably the most photogenic ladder that ever was, which hooks to the rocks and curves down into the turquoise sea. Keep on for apéro hour and settle at a desk up on the rooftop terrace for cocktails and choosy bits of heat native fougasse bread with a trio of tangy sauces and native olives in time for sundown.
After sunset, drinks and dinner will be had within the restaurant, or in Les Goudes village, which boasts a handful of nice choices. As there isn’t any music at Tuba, the spot is quiet, chatter paced by the rise and fall of the waves beneath. At night time, there is a splash of stars above, to be contemplated by home windows that look out onto the rocks and sea from the consolation of bouncy beds in one among Tuba’s five rooms.
Designer Marion Mailaender’s magic operates all through. Wooden panels remind of sea-worn boat hulls and cabins straight out of 1988 film The Huge Blue. Classic postcards of Les Goudes, books about diving, shells and playful ceramic lights discovered at flea markets carry heat and character to areas that really feel private however not cluttered. Previous masks and tubas grasp from blue steel “Pipe” hooks by artist Elvire Bonduelle and thick twisted boat rope traces the partitions in guise of plinths. Select room three for house and just a little spot of your individual on the terrace or room 4 for quiet away from the restaurant hubbub.
The view from room 4 at Tuba Membership, Marseille.
The following day, I wake with the solar pushing in direction of the horizon by a sky of washed-out electrical pinks earlier than it turns to its standard vivid cobalt blue. Early morning or night are the most effective instances for exploring the environment, usually scorching by noon. I wished to see taxi driver Pierre’s tackle the “finish of the world” so I lace up and head outdoors. The street forks and a automotive zips previous with ladies, arms out of rolled-down home windows, bellowing the phrases to the Whitney Houston traditional I Wanna Dance with Anyone (Who Loves Me).
In all its Polaroid-filter palette glory, there’s one thing within the simplicity of life and the proximity to nature right here in Les Goudes and at Tuba Membership that makes it really feel such as you’ve traveled again in time, which is each comforting and refreshing.
I comply with the automotive into Les Goudes village, which curves round a small port earlier than snaking round an enormous mountain jutting out of the ocean, its rock face blackened and weathered by the wind making it seem like it is melting within the solar. By itself island, birds circle its steepled tops earlier than resting within the crumbling church and graveyard constructed on one aspect. Strolling trails crisscross the encompassing rocks, as much as peaks from which to admire the close by islands scattered within the sea.
The Calanques Nationwide Park stretches throughout an space of 200 sq. miles alongside the ocean.
I choose my manner alongside a slim path carved right into a prong of rock that results in the Cap Croisette adjoining to a tiny sheltered bay with a restaurant known as the Baie des Singes, that comes alive in season and is thought for throwing raucous events in its heyday. Once I go to, the restaurant has but to open for the season, and the tiny cluster of irregular seaside homes surrounding it seems to be uninhabited save for just a few clothes the identical coloration of the land drying on a garments line. On the very tip of the nation, there’s an alluring desert island ambiance accentuated by lashes of wind and swirling grey cloud. On my manner again inland, I come throughout a handful of locals are out strolling their canine or arrange with a beer on the rocks ready for sundown. As I move them, they greet me with a smile, one that claims they know they’re onto an excellent factor right here on this quiet nook of Marseille.
