M Rencontre

Rating: 14.5
Author: Gault&Millau

13006 MARSEILLE

14.5/20
Chef's Restaurant

BOOK

5 PHOTOS

Chef: Mathieu Bourdoiseau
Cooking: French | Gastronomic | Signature cuisine
Style: Romantic

Budget (€)

Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

22 to 105

Gault&Millau's review 2026

To say that Mathieu Bourdoiseau's career path is atypical is an understatement, as he started out as a school teacher, specializing in teaching autistic children. He eventually branched out into cooking, first as a private chef, then at Victor Mercier in Paris, before taking the helm at the Arco restaurant in La Rochelle. Among other experiences, he spent a few months with Ludovic Turac, before meeting Julien Diaz and Guillaume Bonneaud, who entrusted him with the keys to their Saisons near Castellane. Winner of the Gault&Millau Jeunes Talents Sud-Est award in 2025, this year he is proving his full potential, developing with his partner Manon Dubois an experience as sensitive as it is warm, full of intelligence, taste and value. His cuisine is first and foremost a work of art, playing on colors and motifs, without ever being reduced to mere cosmetic expression. The plates have depth and meaning, playing on references with great intuition, a beautiful work on wolf and leek, gin gravelax, sorrel sauce, leek confit with fumet and burnt leek, yuzukoshō with bergamot and jalapeño pickles for piquancy, accompanied as with every service by a second plate for the final note, here a beautiful wolf ceviche with bergamot and jalapeño. The monkfish confit is the pinnacle of the meal, impeccably cooked and above all an unforgettable sauce, a bouillabaisse caramel jus, pastis gel and fermented carrot emulsion, Buddha's hand gel, of remarkable balance and power. On the side, a combination of fermented carrots, monkfish chorizo and rouille, refreshing and serving as an interlude. Don't miss the famous roasted hydne hedgehog mushroom, conceived as a vegetable meat, followed by the very fine sweetbread in coffee butter, already visually striking with its zebra sauce, full-bodied yellow wine jus, fir-smoked blue squash, squash, walnut and walnut cream fritters, and its small plate of raw veal, squash remoulade and fermented coffee emulsion. The buckwheat financier and crème pâtissière with verbena berry, pear and red pepper condiment and black pepper caramel is a little less spectacular, but still elegant, with, once again, this original work of seasoning. Manon Dubois provides a high level of service, advising on wine with ease, from a cellar chosen with eclecticism (domaine de la Taille aux loups, château Simone, Hauvette, château de Roquefort, Jamet, Santa Duc, Pattes Loup, Thevenet, Giboulot, Laura David, Clos des fées, Giachino...).