Mouné is located between rue Sainte and rue Grignan, in the Palais de Justice district, which is already well endowed with good addresses. It is two blocks away from the Old Port, where Mouné has settled down its suitcases full of family stories and recipes from Lebanon, adding one more good table to it.
Inside, you can see the cuisine where Chef Najla and her assistants are busy ; at the counter and twirling in the crowded dining room, Serge explains the menu of the day and his favorite wines to accompany it.
The gastronomic hold-up can begin!
We move away from the basic French-style Lebanese formulas (mezzes, grilled meats and kebbés) and we keep only the best! without touching it. Explanation: out of the 300 or so traditional Lebanese mezzes*, there are the recipes that it would be sinful to touch - we're talking about chickpea hummus (hommous literally means "chickpea") or garlic cream, which here reaches heights of perfection! - and we add a suite to the menu, made of a modernized family cuisine that frees itself from the only Lebanese terroirs to venture far beyond the recipes inherited from grandmothers. A patient seasonal cuisine, with no parsley tabbouleh, nor fattouch in winter, for lack of fresh tomatoes; modern, mixed and light, open to the world and without orthodoxy, within the limits that one will never make hummus with lentils or white beans, nor will one dare serve grilled meat with rice.
With chalkboard menu/specials : Rolled veal breast stuffed with herbs and chard, sumac sauce / Spicy land-sea octopus in two bakings / Prawn kabseh / Moghrabyeh (giant cereal beads) in a fragrant broth with matured Aubrac beef and free-range chicken / Small quails with apples and frikeh (green wheat) / Red sambousseks with feta / Matured free-range pig's loin with persimmons / Small spelt fatayers with chard green, onion and sumac / Bonito with miso, sweet potato puree, sesame, garlic chips and cucumber salad / Fassoulia bi zeit, white bean stew with tomato and coriander and poached egg with grapes / Scallops snacked with grapefruit / and for dessert, Mouhalabieh homemade, a dessert flavored with orange blossom or sometimes with rose / small baklawa by 3.
All the products are local (address book kindly given by the owners, at the bottom of the article) and from the Cedar Country, also distributed in the small store of the restaurant. The "Terroirs du Liban" range is proposed by an NGO gathering several producers from each region, guaranteeing a fair trade and preserving ancestral cultures and production methods. Sumac, pomegranate molasses, rose syrup and moghrabieh; "Farid" artisanal arak, two stills and 6,000 bottles per year, or the "SEPT" wines.
On the vineyard side, the wine list is declined in the 3 colors, rich of all the French wineries, to which is added the orange of the traditional macerated wines, to test imperatively! This centuries-old production technique is common to Lebanon, Cyprus and Georgia.
We extract here those that our palates have tested with happiness: the "Ultra-violet" of the Pirouettes d'Alsace wines, a collective of committed winemakers, 100% pinot gris macerated for 10 days and aged for 8 months, to obtain a joyful and fruity red-rose; the incredible "Indigènes" to which we rally at every meal taken here, thick and tannic, elaborated by a Brotherhood of Winegrowers who test plots of land planted with vines of more than 15 different grape varieties, and who make, year after year, unique blends; or "Le Fief Noir", the soul of a 100% chenin Anjou wine, aged in barrels for the most part, then in jars for a malto-lactic fermentation, giving it a light color and a mineral nose, an acidic palate and notes of white flesh fruits.
To your forks! Don't forget to book your table
30 rue Fortia, 13001 Marseille – France
+33 7 66 52 30 75
The table is open Monday through Friday from noon to 2:30 pm (2 pm on Fridays) and some Friday evenings, from 7:45 pm to 11:30 pm, for exceptional evenings around unique long-preparation dishes.
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During the summer season, the restaurant is closed at lunchtime to promote the evenings.
* The mezze is conventionally a platter composed of ten to a hundred small dishes served at the same time, all of which come from Levantine and Mediterranean cuisine (Lebanese, Syrian, Turkish, Kurdish, Greek, Armenian, Iranian, etc.). They are eaten with bread, traditional pita or as here, good baguette.
At home, we call them "taraillettes" and like everywhere around, they were originally served with anisette, arak in Lebanon.
The address book proposed by Najla and Serge :
"La Ferme des Petits Champs", market gardening on living soil in the 15th district of Marseille
Rémy sets up his bench of seasonal vegetables every Friday at the Marché de la Plaine.
"Boucherie Viandes Ethique", a short circuit butcher shop, based in Frontignan (34) Fair trade butchery, direct sales from breeders in the French regions, guaranteed quality and traditional slaughter.
"Poissonnerie du Golfe", rue du Docteur Combalat, Marseille 6th district Four generations of fishmongers for one of the oldest stores in Marseille. Daily arrival of fish, shellfish and crustaceans.
