You are here: Home » Morocco Food » Restaurants in Morocco

Restaurants in Morocco

Eating in Morocco

More expensive dishes, available in some of the Medina cafés as well as in the restaurants in Morocco, include fish, particularly on the coast, and chicken (poulet), either spit-roasted (rotl) or in a tajine with lemon and olives (poulet aux olives et citran).

You will sometimes find pastilla, too, a succulent pigeon pie (in cheaper versions chicken may be used), prepared with filo pastry dusted with sugar and cinnamon; it is a particular specialty of Fes.

And, of course, there is couscous, perhaps the most famous Moroccan dish. Berber in origin and based on a huge bowl of steamed semolina piled high with vegetables and mutton, chicken, or occasionally fish. Restaurant couscous, however, tends to be disappointing. There is no real tradition of going out to eat in Morocco, and this is a dish that’s traditionally prepared at home for a special occasion (on Friday, the holy day, in richer households; perhaps for a festival in poorer ones). Often, you’ll need to give two or three hours’ notice for it to be cooked in a Moroccan restaurant. In the home, remember that every Moroccan’s mom cooks the finest couscous in the kingdom.

At festivals, which are always good for interesting food, and at the most expensive tourist restaurants in Morocco, you may also come across mechoui – roast lamb, which may even take the form of a whole sheep roasted on a spit. In Marrakesh particularly, another speciality is tanjia, which is jugged beef or lamb, cooked very slowly in the embers of a hammam furnace.

To supplement these standard offerings, most Moroccan restaurants add a few French dishes – steak, liver, various fish and fowl, etc – and the ubiquitous salade marocaine, actually very different from the Moroccan idea of salad, since it’s based on a-few tomatoes, cucumbers and other greens. You’ll also probably have the choice of fruit, yogurt, or sometimes even creme caramel for dessert.

Restaurants in Morocco are typically open noon-3pm for lunch, and 7-11 pm for dinner, though cheaper places may be open in the morning and between times too. At restaurants described as “cheap”, a typical meal (starter, main course, dessert and drink) will cost less than 80dh ($5/$9). At places described as “moderate”, you can expect to pay 80-150dh ($5-9.50/$9-17.50), while anywhere likely to cost over 150dh ($9.50/$17.50) is described as “expensive”. Obviously, though, you’ll get more and better food in general when dining in Morocco at a moderate or expensive restaurant than you will at a cheap one. Note also that places which don’t display prices are likely to overcharge you big-time unless you check the price before ordering.