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Cafes in Morocco

Eating and Drinking in Morocco

Like accommodations, food in Morocco falls into two basic categories: ordinary Moroccan meals served in the Medina cafés (or bought from stalls), and French influenced tourist menus in most of the hotel s and Ville Nouvelle restaurants. There are exceptions – cheap local cafés in the new cities and occasional palace-style places in the Medina. Whatever your budget, don’t be afraid to try both options. The Medina places are mostly cleaner than they look and their food is usually fresh and tasty.

Basic café food in Morocco

Basic Moroccan meals may begin with a thick, very filling soup – most often the spicy, bean and pasta harira (which is a meal in itself, and eaten as such to break the Rarnadan fast). Alternatively, you might start with a salad (often very finely chopped), or have this as a side dish with your main course, typically a plateful of kebabs (either brochettes – small pieces of lamb on a skewer – or kefta, made from minced lamb). Some small cafes in Morocco also offer fried fish, a stew of beans, or a plate or kebab such as liver or brain, which many Western tourists prefer to avoid, though in fact it can be very tasty. A few hole-in-the wall places specialize in soup, which they sell by the bowlful all day long – such places are usually indicated by a pile of soup bowls at the front. As well as harira, and especially for breakfast, some places sell a thick pea soup called bisara, topped with full-flavored green olive oil.

Moroccan Cafe

Alternatively, you could go for a tajine, which is essentially a stew, steam-cooked slowly in an earthenware dish, with a conical earthenware “lid”, over a charcoal fire. Like “casserole”, the term “tajine” actually refers to the dish and lid rather than the food cooked in it. Classic tajines include lamb/mutton with prunes and almonds, or chicken with olives and lemon. Less often, you may get a tajine of fish or just vegetables. A popular alternative is kefta, a tasty tajine of meatballs topped with eggs. A tajine is to Moroccan cuisine what a curry is to Indian, and you’ll find a whole variety of different ones on offer at Moroccan cafes through from the very cheapest to the most expensive place in town. Mopped up with bread, they can be unbelievably delicious.

Kebabs or a tajine would in all likelihood set you back little more than 30dh (2/$3.25) at one of the hole-in-the-wall places in the Medina, with their two or three tables. You are not expected to bargain for cafe food in Morocco, but prices can be lower in such places if you inquire how much things cost before you start eating. There is often no menu when eating in Morocco- only a board written in Arabic only.

If you’re looking for breakfast or a snack, you can buy a half-baguette – plus butter and jam, cheese or eggs, if you want – from many bread or grocery stores, and take it into a café to order a coffee. Many cafés in Morocco, even those which serve no other food, may offer a breakfast of bread, butter and jam (which is also what you’lI get in most hotels), or maybe an omelette. Some places also offer soup, such as harira, with bread, and others have stalls outside selling by weight traditional griddle breads such as harsha (quite heavy with a gritty crust), melaoui or msimmen (sprinkled with oil, rolled out thin, folded over and rolled out again several times, like an Indian paratha) and baghira (full of holes Iike a very thin English crumpet). If that is not sufficient, supplementary foods you could buy include dates or olives, yoghurt, or soft white cheese (ejben).