Marseillan port highlights: oysters and Noilly Prat; flashback to 2017… and 2023; aerial views of the Camargue; les huitres… shucking marvellous; meaning of concylicole; Le port concylicole des Mazet; les coquillages, especially Coqui Thau; cruise on L’Étang de Thau; Oyster Farming #101; Maison Noilly Prat; three more Marseillan restaurants; Father’s Day at home with Wendy
Oysters are synonymous with the Étang de Thau – a 22km-long lagoon fed by the Mediterranean Sea. You can enter it by boat from Le Canal du Rhône à Séte, which is how Roy and I got to Marseillan in July/August 2017 on our boat Karanja, while en route to the start of Le Canal du Midi. (For that story, plus scads of Boaty-McBoatface photos, click here.)
Flashback to August 2017…
Crossing LÉtang de Thau from Séte to Marseillan on Karanja, on a hazy day.
… and to mid-2023
This time, as explained in Part 1 (my previous post) of this France trilogy, we got there by EasyJet from Gatwick. Here’s why I love a window seat: coming in to land at Montpellier airport, I took these two shots of the coastline:
- About a kilometre from the Camargue city Aigues-Morte, this is the town of Le Grau-du-Roi, (say “The Growl of Roy”), according to my clever iPhone.
- View of Maugiuo (say “Mog-yo”), a town 11km east of Montpellier. Coincidentally, that waterway at the bottom is the above-mentioned Canal du Rhône à Séte.
Another porthole view – see the long barge on the Canal du Rhône à Séte?
Marseillan Port Highlights: Oysters… Shucking Marvellous!
We’d tried the locally farmed oysters back in 2017, but only at Marseillan’s gorgeous Chateau du Port. Now, with more time at our disposal, we were really able to indulge… I don’t think I’ll need a zinc supplement for at least the next six months*.
- Zinc fact: Actually, it seems the body doesn’t store zinc very well; you need to get it every day, ideally. I take that advice with a pinch of salt – and my oysters with a dash of Tabasco. At about 5.5g of zinc each, five oysters would give you at least the UK health authority’s recommended maximum dose of zinc. Oysters are also packed with selenium, copper, vitamins C, D and B12, and more. (For more pearls on nutrition and lifestyle, check out Living Long and Strong with Verne & Roy at vernemaree.com.)
A. Le port conchylicole* des Mazet
Conchylicole means “to do with farming edible shellfish, like mussels, oysters, clams, scallops and abalone”. This port conchylicole at Marseillan, on the Thau basin (étang), is described as the most important in the Mediterranean… and it’s something to see.
Our 2017 stay in Marseillan port had been so incredibly hot that we lacked the energy to explore anything beyond the immediate environs of the port… we barely even got to the centre ville, just five minutes away by foot. So, the conchylicole aspect of Marseillan was all new to me.
A ten-to-twelve-minute walk from the port, through a rambling playground and then along a little road named Chemin L’Etang, takes you to Le port conchylicole des Mazet. Here you’ll find a row of oyster producers (coquillages) extending along the water’s edge for at least 800m or more. They each bring in the harvest by skiff in large plastic skips, offloading their weighty cargo with the help of steel gantries, and possibly a lot of other technical verbiage that is, alas, not at my command.
Many of these coquillage houses sell direct to the public – usually mornings only – and some also open at lunchtime for dégustation, or tasting. I’ve also seen huge refrigerated lorries coming and going, no doubt for distribution all over France and elsewhere.
Recycling
As you can imagine, they get through an enormous amount of bi-valves each day, resulting in a lot of shelly detritus. Passing by on a morning walk or run, I would see smelly skip-fuls of the empty shells, carefully separated into ex-oysters and ex-mussels. I wondered what became of them, until one day the Chemin d’Étang was blocked by my answer: the recycling lorry, stopping every couple of dozen metres to mechanically lift the full skips and empty them into its belly. Just one guy, all on his lonesome.
First up: Chez Titin
First coquillage in line is Chez Titin. We heard it was good, but never got to taste its fare. It amuses me that the sign here says réservation conseillée (booking advisable), while the probably more popular Coqui Thau advises réservation obligatoire. You have been warned!
Here’s the menu at Chez Titin, quite similar to those of all the other coquillages along this strip:
Coqui Thau, top of the Marseillan Port Highlights list
I first stumbled upon this row of treasures while on a Monday morning run; nothing opens on a Monday, so their doors were firmly shut. However, Coqui Thau’s doors were open (at 30 Chemin L’Étang) while the friendly boss was overseeing some maintenance work. He kindly invited me in to have a look; so that was where I booked for the lunch-time tasting the next day, and, being creatures of easily formed habit, we never bothered to try any of the others.
Semi-alfresco tables overlook the lagoon, so you can see exactly where your lunch has come from. The menu is limited, and you’d better like seafood: oysters raw or gratinée (grilled), the best boiled prawns I can remember, and moules brasucade – mouth-watering molluscs grilled over an open fire and doused with Coqui Thau’s own special sauce.
The seafood is served with bread, of course, and also with small portions of butter, which isn’t usually a thing in the south of France. But it is usual with oysters. Bring your own Tabasco! And be sure book in advance. (After all, c’est obligatoire.)
Ideally, you’d kick off with a Marseillanais, a famously local apéritif made with two flavours of Noilly Prat vermouth. (More on Noilly Prat below: Marseillan is its home, and has been forever.) After that, it would be rude not to have a bottle of the delicious Picpoul de Pinet wine for which this region is famous.
B. Boat Trip on the Étang de Thau, a Marseillan port highlight
At this time of the year, Diane 1 takes passengers for a 90-minute excursion around the oyster and mussel farms of the lagoon/étang/bassin de Thau at both 11am and 3pm. It’s the kind of thing you’re more inclined to do when you have guests. So thank goodness we had guests! – Paul and Salinah from Singapore, who were spending five nights with us after a shipping conference in Greece and some time in Turkey.
No, there’s no English commentary, said the man at the quayside office, regretfully shaking his head in a most Gallic way. “However, we do have this page of translation with all the information on it.” (Said he, in French.) I took his word for it, and booked for the four of us – at €18 a head.
As we’d come straight to the boat for the 3pm cruise after a long and fairly bibulous lunch, and Paul slept deeply through almost the entire commentary, it’s reasonable to assume that it being in French mattered not to him.
You can do an oyster dégustation on board – but we were still full of our lunch at Les Deux M and had booked a table for dinner at La Table D’Emilie, apparently the only Michelin-starred restaurant in the area. (Both restaurants are reviewed below.)
Oyster Farming #101
Of course, the laminated “translation” sheet contained only five percent of the information actually delivered during the boat-ride, but it helped. I can now tell you that:
#1 The Étang de Thau (or Bassin de Thau) is 22km long and has 2,800 oyster tables (shown below), farmed by 450 individuals.
#2 The tables are identical in size, measuring 50m long and 10m wide. The older ones are wooden; newer ones are made of steel.
#3 The method used here is to breed the molluscs in suspension on ropes. On each table hang 1,000 cords (ropes) of oysters, strung 10cm apart, delivering a production of eight to 10 tons of oysters per table every two years. The annual production of the entire Bassin de Thau is 10,000 tons, about 9% of France’s oyster harvest. Incredibly, it is said that those slippery-throated Frenchies manage to consume 95% of their country’s production.
#4 Some of the tables, like the fancy one shown below, are equipped with solar panels powering electrical turbines that lift and lower the ropes of oysters in and out of the water, creating a sort of artificial tide. The exposure to sun and wind makes the oysters bigger and more muscular, with thicker shells that mean they’re more suitable for transportation, and especially for export. Many of the baby oysters farmed for this purpose come from Japan; I suppose that’s where some of them go back to once they’re all grown up and delicious.
#5 More than 200 professional fishermen also bring out gilt-head bream (les dourades), sea bass (les loups), sole (les soles), cuttlefish (les seiches), red mullet (les rougets), eels (les aiguilles), clams (les palourdes), sea urchins (les oursins) and sea snails (les bulots).
The Noilly Prat Experience – a Marseillan port highlight
As a reminder: Noilly Prat is a vermouth that is made here in Marseillan, and only here. The production facility is right on Marseillan port: it’s an integral part of Marseillan. NB: to be a vermouth, it absolutely has to contain absinthe. It comes in four varieties: Classic (white), Very Dry, Rouge and Ambré. I love them all.
For a detailed description of the Noilly Prat tour experience, refer to my sweaty August 2017 blog post. However, the tour experience, including the museum area, has been greatly improved since our first visit in summer 2017.
Roy and I have now done the Noilly Prat tour three times. As mentioned, the first time was in 2017 – click here. The second time was with a most patient Steve and Ellie… guided by Pascal, who delivered the spiel in French. His English was really good, too, but necessarily limited to brief asides and explanations, as the four of us were the only Anglophones in the group of about a dozen.
The third time, with Paul and Salinah, we managed to book the 10.15am tour with an English-speaking guide: the four of us, and a young French/Hong Kong couple called Willy and Dorothy.
Three more Marseillan port restaurants
In Part 1 of this three-part post on Marseillan, I’ve already raved about: Le Chateau du Port, Pap’y J, La Taverne du Port and Upendo, all located on the port itself.
Here are three more that, for different reasons, I don’t want to leave out. They’re all in the centre ville, just a few minutes’s walk from the port.
#1 Les Deux M (20 rue Suffren, Marseillan)
Why not leave it out? Because the food was really good, though it came too slowly.
Previously Chez Philippe, which we loved so much in 2017, Les Deux M still has a pretty courtyard and served good food – but so slowly that it took over two hours to order and eat our should-have-been-simple, two-course lunch. The result? You eat too much bread and drink too much wine.
#2 La Table D’Emilie (8, place Carnot, Marseillan)
Why not leave it out? Because it took up a sizeable chunk of our lives that we won’t ever get back… and it has a Michelin star. (For now, at least.)
This is the only Michelin-starred restaurant in the area, and it was disappointing. Not that the food wasn’t tasty – it was all delicious – but because a dégustation of six courses, mostly not-too-complicated and all from the relatively short menu (an admittedly reasonable €90 a head for the dégustation), took an unreasonable four hours and more to arrive.
It was by no means just our table: A family of five at the next table, who told us they lived in the area and were celebrating their daughter’s graduation, walked out after two hours: they’d been served only one course.
Paying for it
And then the restaurant was unable to take payment, because “the wifi was down”. This happens sometimes late at night, they said. (Why was it so late?) However, there was still no wifi when our friend Paul returned the next morning to pay; he ended up making payment at the florist next door – whose internet wasn’t down, and who promised to deliver the dosh to their good neighbours at La Table D’Emilie.
Our opinion? A star can be a liability. They’re evidently more about arranging micro-flowers than about serving their ravenously bleating customers.
If you really want to try it, I suggest limiting yourself to the three-course menu.
#3 Le Jardin de Naris (24 boulevard Pasteur)
Why not leave it out? Because I, for one, really enjoyed it.
Roy didn’t love it as I did, because the oysters (from Mas Bleu coquillage, see above) weren’t as tasty as those we’d had elsewhere… but he was happy with his boeuf tartare. I think he might have been happier overall if he hadn’t told the gorgeous manager not to bring the frites that it would usually come with. Studies have shown that people who order the chips are about 38 percent happier than those who don’t.
I, on the other hand, loved my tender chunks of cuttlefish (seiches) in a dark, aromatic sauce, served with local Camargue rice, veggies and salad. Wendy was also well satisfied with her fillet of fish with similar trimmings. The watermelon was an unexpected though undoubtedly seasonal touch.
Eating at Home
Finally, we had some delicious meals on the balcony of our apartment. Some people don’t get tired of eating out, but Roy and I honestly do… even in France.
That’s why we generally prefer an apartment to a hotel. Blessed with the full, well-equipped kitchen at Résidence Farenc, it was a pleasure to prepare the odd meal in. Especially as some of the ready meals (like duck confit and brandade de morue) from French supermarkets are often free from preservatives, cheap seed oils and other crap.
Here, for example, is a duck confit from the Spar supermarket in Marseillan centre ville, with a pile of buttery courgettes and broccoli:
And here’s a traditional dish from Languedoc/Rousillon/Provence: brandade de morue (salted cod, olive oil and mashed potato) bought from Carrefour, brushed with a bit more olive oil and baked in the oven until bubbly. We choose whichever brand has the highest percentage of fish. It goes perfectly with a simple salad.
And last, but not least: Father’s Day with Wendy
To celebrate Father’s Day Sunday with her dad, Wendy brought along her fancy new plancha (Spanish for portable grill) with all the makings for a fabulous dinner on the balcony: steaks (tournedos Rossini), baby potatoes, asparagus salad and a crusty baguette.
Next up? Part 3, of course: all about our side trip to Arles from Marseillan with Paul and Salinah, plus a bit about the equally historical nearby city of Beziers. And whatever else I can’t bear to leave out.
