The dishes everyone should try
- Tagine — slow-cooked stew in a conical clay pot. Chicken-lemon-olive and lamb-prune are the classics. $3–6 at a workers’ café.
- Harira — tomato, chickpea and lentil soup. Traditional Ramadan fast-breaker but eaten year-round. $1 a bowl with bread.
- Pastilla — flaky pastry pie with pigeon or chicken, eggs, almonds and cinnamon. Sweet-savoury and addictive. $5–8.
- Couscous — served fresh on Fridays. The sauce is the whole art; the grain is just the base.
- Merguez brochettes — spiced lamb sausages grilled on charcoal. $2–3 in a sandwich.
- Msemen — layered flaky pancake eaten hot with honey and amlou (argan-almond butter). Breakfast of champions.
Street food you should not miss
- Snail soup — sold by grandmothers in the medina, ladled from huge vats. 5 dirhams. Trust the grandmothers.
- Bocadillo — Moroccan-style sandwich with tuna, egg, olives, pickles. $2, a meal in itself.
- Bissara — thick fava-bean soup with olive oil and cumin. Breakfast food in the north.
- Sardines grillées — charcoal-grilled sardines on the Atlantic coast. $3 for a whole plate in Essaouira.
Drink
Moroccan mint tea is a ceremony, not a drink — poured from a height to aerate, served three times (bitter, strong, sweet). Jus d’orange fresh-squeezed for 5 dirhams is the cheapest joy in Marrakech. Coffee is strong and French-style. Alcohol is legal but limited to hotels, licensed restaurants and Carrefour supermarkets.
City specialities
- Fes — pastilla, b’ssara, fish chermoula. Fes is the food capital; splurge once.
- Marrakech — tanjia (lamb slow-cooked in a clay urn in public hammam ovens), tangia Marrakchia a must-try.
- Chefchaouen — goat cheese, kaliente (chickpea pudding), mountain honey.
- Essaouira — grilled sardines, urchin, ray, everything the Atlantic gives that morning.
- Casablanca — French-Moroccan fusion, best seafood in the country at La Sqala.
Eat cheap and well
Locate the café populaire or snack with a queue of workers at lunch. A bowl of harira, tagine, bread and tea for $4. Avoid anywhere that uses English menus with photos — you’re paying for the translation.
Safe eating tips
- Cooked hot = safe. Cold salads at non-touristy places = risky the first few days.
- Bottled water only (2 dirhams).
- Fruit you can peel is safe. Pre-cut fruit on a tray is not.
- Street meat that’s continuously cooking is safer than meat sitting pre-cooked.
Moroccan food is generous, spiced and deeply seasonal. Eat with locals when you can; they’ll feed you until you beg them to stop.