Valentin Raffali’s cooking is poetic—think Arthur Rimbaud—but there’s also a little bit of Rambo in the 28-year-old Marseillais. Livingston, Raffali’s vest-pocket-size restaurant, is part of the reason why Marseille has now usurped Lyon as the gastronomic rival of Paris. My meal began with the best fish soup of my life, served with focaccia that was streaked with melted cheese and dotted with garlic purée. Next came a boned skate wing in a beurre noisette with capers, tiny cubes of pickled cherry, and broccoli flowers. And then the dish that took my breath away: poulet de Bresse, the finest fowl in France, in a camel-colored pool of sauce Albufera (Madeira, chicken stock, cream, butter, and foie gras). One of the most elegant sauces of the French culinary canon, this one was on par with the first Albufera I ever tasted. And that one was made by the late, great Paul Bocuse. —Alexander Lobrano