Restaurant AM par Alexandre Mazzia is a small but unique restaurant located in the Southern part of France, in the city of Marseille. Mazzia serves a menu which consists of sequences. The sequences are combinations of dishes that look like artworks and of which the taste is inspired by the youth of the chef in Congo. Expect fabulous smoky, spicy hot dishes which will first seduce your eyes and then your taste buds.

Location & Interior

Mazzia decided to open his restaurant in Marseille, which is in the South of France, near the Mediterranean Sea. AM par Alexandre Mazzia is located in a small street of a chic residential area of the city, near Prado and the famous Stade Vélodrome of Marseille. From the outside, the restaurant looks very humble. You could easily walk by while hardly noticing there is restaurant, set apart that, if you are not in the knowing, you would be aware it is a three Michelin starred restaurant. Upon entering through the glass front door, you are immediately standing in the middle of the restaurant. The dining room is rather small and caters only for around twenty guests. Immediately you notice the atmosphere, which is influenced by the dark walls, the wooden tables and the very minimalistic interior design. Some plants which are growing from small pillars in the restaurant, seem to refer to the first years of the chef’s life in Africa. At the back of the restaurant, there is a wall where some small items refer to important memories of the chef. Very dominant in the space is the counter, where a few guests can be seated, but which is also serving as the pass where Mazzia finishes every dish before it is sent to the guests. From every seat in the restaurant, you see the open kitchen, which is probably one of the smallest kitchens in the world for a three Michelin star restaurant. Even though the open kitchen, and the finishing of the plates at the counter in the restaurant, the atmosphere remains very serene and quiet throughout the service.

The Chef & the team

Alexandre Mazzia grew up in the Democratic republic of Congo and stayed there till the age of fourteen. That period had an immense impact on the kind of chef he became. Still today, his food is strongly influenced by the tastes and the smell of his youth on the African continent. Upon moving back to France, the young Alexandre started playing basketball and became very proficient in it. With a length of 1.92 meters, Mazzia had the perfect body for the game. Even though he generally speaks with a rather low voice, the chef appears impressive. He got a degree in science and it looked like his future would be in professional basketball. But a sports injury in 2004, changed everything. He had to stop playing. Mazzia, who always adored the food of his grandmother and who was inspired by what she did in her restaurant, decided to orient his career into a different direction and opted to become a professional chef. His culinary education he got at the hospitality and gastronomy school Ecole Hotelière Santos Dumont in St. Cloud. Once out of school, the young chef started gaining experience with big names such as Hermé, Passard and especially Santi Santamaria of Can Fabes, near Barcelona. Alexandre also worked as a private chef in Le Hom’Art Avignon and from 2009 onwards in Le Corbusier, where he started to create his own style. A style that never stopped evolving. A very big step was the opening of his own restaurant AM par Alexandre Mazzia in 2014. From that moment, things really started to go fast. In 2015 the first Michelin star came. The second one followed in 2019 and the third one in 2021.

The team of AM par Alexandre Mazzia consists of many nationalities of which French, Portuguese, Italian and Japanese are the most numerous ones. They all work very closely together in the small kitchen. Mazzia hardly talks to them during service. Little hand gestures and looking each other in the eyes, seems enough to create dish after dish in an extremely smooth manner.

Gastronomy

Mazzia created a very unique cooking style in which smoke, spices and heat play a crucial role. He spent his youth at the African coast, and in France he is situated in Marseille, not far from the Mediterranean Sea. The smells that you find nearby the ocean, clearly influenced the chef strongly. Fish, vegetables and products of which the roots are in Africa, inspire the chef for the creation of distinctive dishes.

Chili peppers are often used to create the African heat on the plate and the chef has clearly a strong connection to spices, which he uses to make his food unique. Apart from the spices, it is also the sometimes very surprising combination of products of which you would not expect that they can match, that really puts the food of Mazzia apart of what you find in any other top restaurant. His combination of eel with chocolate is a good example of that unique cooking style that very fast became legendary. The menu is not build around dishes, but around sequences.

Each sequence consists of several dishes which are served together. Every plate is very colorful and Mazzia uses a lot of flowers to turn his creations into real artworks. The chef mainly sources the ingredients for his restaurant in the neighborhood, but if there is no local alternative, products are sourced in other regions in France. Mazzia adapts his menu also depending on availability of the products.

Example tasting menu:

Service & Wine

The service in AM par Alexandre Mazzia is very accurate and the team pays attention to every detail. As Mazzia himself is standing at the pass and keeps his eyes on every table continuously, nothing remains unnoticed. You can feel that the service team is very motivated and they express a unique kind of energy. The sommelier is Kevin Bardau, a foodie who travels to visit the best restaurants himself and of which the appearance discloses a unique personality. That unique personality also leads to surprising choices in the wine pairing. Don’t be surprised to find wines from Greece and New Zealand, Sake from Japan and sparkling wine from the UK in one pairing. For who prefers to make their own choices, the wine menu consists of many very diverse labels.

Why go? 

There are many reasons why we believe that a visit to AM par Alexandre Mazzia cannot be omitted on your list of culinary addresses to visit. The focus is on the fabulous food which is created by the charismatic chef. Attention is not drawn away by the surroundings but remains on the plate the whole evening. And that is why you should go : the incredible food which keeps surprising, dish after dish. Once you walk in and you are seated, you are bombarded with a never-ending series of gorgeous looking plates. Due to the approach with the sequences, where every dish consists of several parts which are served at the same time, you taste more than 30 amazing creations in one evening. Creations which are astonishing on the eye and even more beautiful on the palate. That unique cooking style of Mazzia in which spices, smoke and heat are always present, and that beautiful blend between Africa and the South of France, presented almost as an artform, that is why we can only recommend you to go.

Food shots by ©Philippe Vaures Santamaria