World Food Guide:The Best Places to Eat in Morocco

morocco restaurant

Adecade ago in Marrakesh, Morocco, you could usually count on getting a floor show served along with your dinner. The palatial big-splurge restaurants dished up lots of low camp and ersatz exotica—including jiggly belly dancers and manic drummers twirling their fez caps—designed, perhaps, to distract you from what you were eating. Dry tagines, soupy couscous, and perfumed fruit bowls were commonplace stand-ins for real Moroccan cuisine, and just as faux as the show. (Ironically, the early aughts saw authentic Moroccan cuisine flourishing in cities as far afield as San Francisco and Berlin, where emigrant chefs were composing more thoughtful dishes.)

Back then, dining choices for tourists like me were confined to public spaces—hotels, expatriate restaurants, and medina stalls that actually welcomed travelers. The best Moroccan chefs, though, were the dadas, female home cooks who worked behind the closed doors of their own kitchens. But slowly, the doors have opened, and in today’s Morocco, where the private has begun to go public, more and more boutique riad hotels, as well as an increasing number of serious restaurants, are featuring meals produced by dadas, along with the food of young chefs who are reviving and seriously sourcing soulful Moroccan dishes. The result is a genuine Moroccan cuisine that travelers can actually taste. The following nine dining options offer a taste of the best of Marrakesh and Fez.

Classic Moroccan Restaurants in Marrakesh

La Maison Arabe, Marrakesh’s pioneer boutique riad hotel in the medina, takes its food very seriously. The culinary ambition comes courtesy of owner Fabrizio Ruspoli, whose restaurant Les Trois Saveurs triumphantly reclaims Morocco’s beleaguered signature dish, the tagine. Chef Didier Levy’s famous lamb tagine is a vibrant tour de force roused by saffron, onions, sesame seeds, ginger, turmeric, and caramelized oranges so the tender lamb is brightened by the fruit’s sunny sweetness. Just as good are his chicken tagine with sun-dried peaches, and his pigeon pastilla. Sign up for the hotel’s cooking classes, led by a dada who will reveal recipe secrets that have been passed down through generations. (1, Derb Assehbé, Bab Doukkala; 011-212-5-24-38-70-10; lamaisonarabe.com)

Lunch Al Fresco

Most Marrakesh visitors spend the day prowling the souk until hunger or heat demands that they stop for lunch. Until recently, lunch options in the medina were uninspired. But Kamal Laftimi, the Marrakshi son of a local Arabic teacher, wasn’t shy about fusing the best of old and new Marrakesh when he opened Café des Épices in the thick of the souk. This rooftop café, clubhouse and hangout isn’t easy to find, so diners tend to be insiders who know their way through the medina’s maze. Black stone cabanas, big round wicker chandeliers, and cushion-lined banquettes spritzed with hiccupping clouds of cooling mist from ceiling vents create a perfect hideaway from the heat. The photogenic waitstaff wear big straw hats and bear portable chalkboards scrawled with each day’s menu, a list of eclectic dishes that jumps from tagliatelle to tagines, couscous to crème brulée. At midday, opt for the lighter dishes with clean, bright flavors: the trio of Moroccan salads (usually cubed eggplants, the sweetest carrots, and potatoes) or a fruit bowl piled with oranges, kiwi, and pineapple. (Place aux Esclaves, 011- 212-5-24-39-17-70, facebook.com/cafedesepicesmarrakech)

If the rooftop at Café des Épices is too crowded, head over to Kaftimi’s second, newest restaurant, Le Jardin, a few twists of the medina away from the Café. Situated in the blooming courtyard of a restored riad, Le Jardin is a mash-up of café and performance space, where films are projected on the walls at night and a small library nestles under the courtyard arches. The food, like that at the café, is best for a simple lunch: Try the chicken club sandwich, salad of three melons, sardines in olive oil with toast, or the ricotta ravioli. The calm, oasis-like setting under tall courtyard palm trees makes for a smart escape from the sun.

World Food Guide:The Best Places to Eat in Morocco