Anise-based liqueurs are as ubiquitous as outdoor terraces across the Mediterranean. Long prized for its medicinal benefits, anise is the ideal antidote to the region’s sweltering temps, especially when sipped in tall glasses with refreshingly chilled water, as is common practice. From Turkey’s rakı to Italy’s heavily sweetened sambuca, each country has its own recipe. France has two, anisette and pastis, with the latter having licorice root thrown into the mix. Born in Marseille, pastis is the republic’s most popular aperitif, but both beverages are poured at bars around town, whose shelves are stocked with bottles from a variety of producers. There’s one brand, though, that deserves special attention: Cristal Limiñana, one of the city’s last distilleries.

Anthony the Great is the patron saint of pigs, hence why paintings of him often depict one at his feet. Some say that a pig accompanied him during his hermetic desert life in the 3rd century. Some say he used pork fat to heal skin disease – one of the acts that is linked to his sainthood. Regardless of its reason, all swine-related matters fall under Antoine le Grand’s guardianship. Which is why many charcutiers (pork butchers) in France bear his name. Case in point: Marseille’s Au Grand Saint-Antoine, a name that confuses some locals since it’s the same as the ship that brought the devastating 1720 plague into the city. The charcutier-traiteur actually began as the Fromagerie de l’Est in 1922, a cheese shop that dabbled in charcuterie and chickens.

At a typical pâtisserie orientale, the front window is often stacked with towers of sweets – honey-soaked visual merchandising to entice passersby to pop inside. Some pastry shops line their walls with colorful geometric tiles and Moorish arches, the icing on the Maghreb cake. Pâtisserie Orientale Journo goes for a decidedly more subtle approach. Though located a block from Marseille’s main drag, the Canèbiere, this unassuming shop is somewhat lost in the shuffle of the pedestrian Rue de Pavillon. The few tables scattered out front suggest that there’s food to be found inside but the open storefront is bare – save for a giant five-gallon water jug propped on a stool, with a hand-scrawled sign “citronnade – 2 euros” beside it. That’s all the advertising needed for a pastry shop that has survived by word of mouth for 60 years.

Editor’s note: We are very happy to be able to add Marseille to the growing list of cities CB is covering. Our coverage of that city’s deep and fascinating culinary scene begins today, with our report on Marseille’s State of the Stomach. On the Rue d’Aubagne, Tunisian men dunk bread into bowls of leblebi – a garlicky chickpea soup – as scooters dash by. A dashiki-clad Senegalese woman plucks cassava from the produce market to fry up for lunch. Dusted in flour, Lebanese brothers make falafel sandwiches with pita still warm from their bakery’s oven. A boy buys an Algerian bradj – a date-stuffed semolina bar – to snack on after school as Maghrebi teens in track pants sell single “Marl-bo-ros.” This multicultural montage unfolds along the main artery of the Noailles neighborhood, known as the “belly of Marseille” for its abundant edible offerings and central location.