A small domed tourte filled with octopus in a tomato sauce sharpened with chilli and white wine, sealed under a crimped lid of slightly brioched pastry. A Sète dish, eaten cold or barely warm.

The tielle came to Sète with fishermen from Gaeta, north of Naples, who settled the port from the 1880s onwards. The Italian original is a covered pie; the Sète version fixed on octopus because that is what the boats brought in, and on the distinctive crimped seal around the rim. It was a household recipe sold from doorsteps until the 1930s, when Adrienne Virduci began producing it commercially and the tielle became the town's emblem. Montpellier does not claim the dish, and no serious local cook pretends otherwise, but the traiteur counters in the covered halls carry it year-round.

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