I haven’t quite figured out where the Chef Alexandre Mazzia has put the forty-three dishes that we ate. I mean, he served them to us at the table, but the kitchen – which we can see from the counter where we are seated – is a tiny little corner, and I’m still wondering how they managed to do it.

There are three of us, and we are in Marseille. The kitchen team works diligently and silently, without flaws. It’s Saturday and there’s a football match at the stadium, Marseille-Rennes. It is known that fans in the South of France are serious supporters. What we don’t know is that parking in front of our destination, the three Michelin-starred restaurant AM par Alexandre Mazzia, in an elegant residential neighborhood of the port city, is nearly impossible, as the streets are narrow and the stadium is close by. But we finally make it, and the service will be quick, which doesn’t mean rushed. You may have read that this French chef, born in Congo with an Italian surname is one of a kind and completely unlike his peers, especially the French ones. And well, it’s true.

Alexandre Mazzia is about 1.95 meters tall; his presence is imposing but not intimidating. He’s 48, with kind eyes that don’t linger on what isn’t necessary for the present moment, and currently it is the dinner service in his restaurant (we were told when booking that the restaurant only opens if he is present in the dining room). He stays in the background, letting his team work, calling the dishes while keeping an eye on the flow of the room. Not a small task, considering that Mazzia has reinvented the very concept of a “course.” It’s not a single dish, physically or conceptually, but many: a core with multiple atoms orbiting around it. Like a musical composition or a team, where the director cannot stand without his players.

The comparison comes naturally – and maybe even inevitably – since Mazzia, on top of everything else, is a former professional basketball player. But he’s quick to brush off the “athlete turned chef” narrative. It’s the other way around: Mazzia is a chef, one who, for a certain period of his life, also happened to play basketball. And today, in various interviews, he calls himself lucky to have found kitchens and chefs who understood this duality, allowing him to keep pursuing his culinary studies without giving up time on the court.