Marso & Co – Tomy Gousset's Mediterranean escape in the 13th

On a modest street behind Place d'Italie, a sky-blue shopfront gives little away until the door opens onto an octopus mural and a pergola thick with greenery. Marso & Co is the third address built by chef Tomy Gousset, who trained at Ferrandi after a spell at business school, then worked under Alain Solivérès at Taillevent, Yannick Alléno at Le Meurice and Daniel Boulud in New York before opening Tomy & Co in the 7th arrondissement in September 2016 — a restaurant that won a MICHELIN Star in January 2019. Marso & Co, which opened in May 2019, takes its name from Gousset's younger son Marceau, a nod that follows Hugo & Co, named for his elder boy. Here the register changes: instead of fine dining, this is bistronomy roaming freely around the Mediterranean basin, from Nice's pissaladière to Lebanese and Moroccan spice. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, a mark of a kitchen worth seeking out even without a star of its own.

01The room and the setting

Architect Richard Lafond, who shaped both of Gousset's earlier restaurants, gave Marso & Co two rooms in a row behind an open kitchen counter, so guests can watch the pans move while they wait for a table. A planted pergola runs overhead and shelves are dressed with greenery, softening what is otherwise a fairly bold decorative statement: a sprawling tentacled mural by Parisian street artist Kraken, nicknamed the 'Doctor Octopus of street art', spreads across one wall.

The effect is playful rather than precious — a long communal table anchors one of the rooms, and the mood owes as much to fado and Rachid Taha on the speakers as to anything resembling classic Parisian white tablecloths.

02The chef

Tomy Gousset was born in Cambodia and arrived in France at the age of three; cooking came relatively late, at twenty-three, when he enrolled at Ferrandi after deciding that a university path wasn't for him. He went on to work in some of the most demanding kitchens in Paris and New York — Taillevent under Alain Solivérès, Le Meurice under Yannick Alléno, and Daniel Boulud's eponymous restaurant in Manhattan — before striking out on his own.

Insider tip

Open Monday to Friday only; closed weekends. Menu Carte from 37 €.

Day-to-day cooking at Marso & Co is led by chef Tomoki Saito Matsushita, who met Gousset years earlier while both were working at Pirouette near Les Halles. Gousset now runs three Paris addresses from this small empire — Tomy & Co in the 7th, Hugo & Co in the 5th, and Marso & Co in the 13th — each with its own register but a shared appetite for generous, produce-driven cooking.

03The cooking

The kitchen draws on the full sweep of the Mediterranean rather than any single country: the menu moves from the Côte d'Azur and Spain through Italy and Portugal to North Africa, Lebanon and Greece. Dinner starts with focaccia brushed with olive oil, or a spread of confit garlic, tapenade and tzatziki, before starters that might run from a Niçoise pissaladière to burrata with gomasio or a chorizo skewer flambéed with eau de vie in a nod to the Açores.

Pasta appears too — Fregola Sarda with beef cheek, confit tomatoes and spinach is a fixture — while main courses have included a Moroccan-inflected cod pastilla with Kalamata olives, chorizo, capers and beurre blanc, or chicken thigh perfumed with ras-el-hanout and served with rice, chickpeas, raisins and fried onions. Desserts lean into the same cross-currents: rice pudding twisted with cinnamon and Iranian pistachio, or Portuguese pasteis de nata paired with a coffee ganache.

04What to order

The current carte, read on the restaurant's own site, opens with creamy polenta, egg, wild mushrooms and padron pickles, or raw sea bream with a watercress and orange aguachile. Among the mains, black pollock comes with celery purée, pickled carrots and a cumin-caper butter, and Scottish salmon is paired with celery, quince, oyster mushrooms and beurre blanc; lamb arrives with potato purée, parsnip crisps and a lemon condiment. For two, there is a one-kilogram beef rib with grenaille potatoes. To finish, a persimmon clafoutis with mascarpone or roasted apples with apple cream and caramel close the meal on a lighter note.

05Wine and drinks

The by-the-glass list stays close to the kitchen's own geography — a Prosecco from Domaine Paladin, a Crémant de Bourgogne, rosé from Château les Valentines in the Côtes de Provence, and reds running from a Minervois to a Costières-de-Nîmes — alongside a vintage 2017 Champagne from Huguenot Tassin for those who want bubbles with more weight.

06When to go and booking

Marso & Co serves lunch from midday to 2pm and dinner from 7.15pm to 10pm, Monday to Friday; it is closed on Saturdays and Sundays. The set Menu Carte runs at 46 euros for starter, main and dessert, or 37 euros for two of the three — prices read on the restaurant's own site in October 2026 and billed as service compris.

07The neighbourhood

Rue Vulpian sits in a quiet pocket of the 13th arrondissement, closer to Glacière and the Butte-aux-Cailles than to any tourist circuit — a part of the Left Bank not especially known for its restaurants before Gousset arrived. The nearest métro stations are Glacière and Corvisart, both a short walk from a street where a trattoria once stood before Marso & Co took its place.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.