Marrakesh restaurants: from street food to fine dining, an exotic taste sensation
Skewers, salads, tagine, merguez, sheep’s head for the adventurous, and pastilla – a pie that can have savoury or sweet fillings – await the diner on the streets and in the fine-dining restaurants of the Moroccan city
Jemaa el-Fnaa is the difficult-to-pronounce but impossible-to-miss large central square in the southern Moroccan city of Marrakesh. The food on offer there serves as a perfect introduction to the beguiling cuisine of the north African country.
During the heat of the day there are stalls selling vast mounds of dried fruit and nuts and freshly squeezed orange and pomegranate juices, but come the cooler late afternoon it begins to slowly wake up, not unlike the cobras that are charmed from baskets as people start arriving in numbers. Lanterns are lit as crowds descend and the entertainment begins with all manner of acrobats and jugglers, hawkers and hustlers, dancers and beggars.
It makes for an intoxicating mix that will stay with you and makes a dining backdrop with few rivals.
It is not, however, the first place locals would choose to dine, as I heard that from several Marrakesh natives. It’s more a dining circus as stallholders shout, whistle and wave to try to entice you to their particular stand. Our simple, but broadly effective approach was to pick a stall where we weren’t hassled to sit, the food looked fresh and the mix of customers seemed happy.
The grill is the main culinary star here, meaning that in the evening the square is bathed in a sweet, smoky haze from the meat, fish and vegetables grilled over charcoal or wood. There’s a big choice of foods to eat on skewers, including all manner of chicken, goat, beef and lamb parts – some more recognisable than others.
