Medina Restaurants
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Medina - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in Medina - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
Come hungry for the five-course traditional Moroccan feast served at this restaurant located deep in the medina. Aperitifs are taken on the rooftop, which has stunning panoramic views of the Koutoubia Mosque, and then you can choose to dine beside the pool on the lanterned terrace, in a vaulted upstairs room, or in the lush, cushion-filled main salon. Dinner, including drinks, costs 700 DH and courteous, discreet waiters in white djellabas and red fezzes scurry about to fulfill your every need. This is an exotic experience in a magical setting and alcohol is served.
The airy courtyard in the 1910 building that houses the Dar el Bacha Musée is all palm trees and colorful tiles: it's a perfect oases for a quick bite. There are over 100 types of coffee, from all over the world, and perfect pastries, as well as a selection of main dishes.
This Italian-owned three-story restaurant in the heart of the medina serves both Moroccan and Italian food. The trendy terrace, complete with a trickling fountain and relaxing music, is a good place to stop for drinks, while the ground-floor, shaded patio is better suited to a lunchtime visit.
The multilevel terraced seating area at this café on the square means there are several prime viewing opportunities. It's one of the fancier cafés on the square, having been completely rebuilt in 2017. Stop in for a drink or ice-cream treat to cool down from the Moroccan sun. They also serve meals throughout the day.
An outpost of the popular Café Clock in Fez, this so-called cultural café combines a fun vibe with tasty contemporary Moroccan cuisine. Signature dishes include camel burgers, a blue cheese and fig salad, veggie platters, and homemade ice cream. There's also a menu of cultural activities: exhibitions, live traditional gnawa music, local bands, cooking classes, and al halqa (traditional storytelling). No alcohol is served.
Though it's a bit past its prime, Café de France is a local institution and a great place for people-watching from morning till night. On the ground floor there's a tiny snack restaurant with bright plastic tables, serving sandwiches and quick bites until closing time.
In keeping with the name, this café in the medina's "spice square" offers spiced teas and coffees along with a range of freshly squeezed fruit juices, smoothies, and light snacks, salads, and sandwiches. Ever popular, it expanded into the neighboring property and teeters over three levels with a great rooftop view over the veiled women selling basketware and woolly hats below. No alcohol is served.
It won't win prizes for design, but this cheap joint is perfect for a lunchtime or evening pit stop. Locals and visitors alike frequent this friendly little canteen just on the right before the road opens into Djemâa el Fna. Tagine pots stand two rows deep on the street stall outside, and a barbecue sizzles away. There are much more interesting specialties available on the menu than some of the other little snack-restaurants, including spiced aubergine tagine, sardine tagine, and pastillas. It's cash only and there's no alcohol.
Although the row of severed lambs' heads out front may not be everyone's idea of culinary heaven, Marrakshis love Chez Lamine Hadj Mustapha, and you'd be missing out not to try it. English TV chef Jamie Oliver chose this spit-and-sawdust street restaurant in a filming trip for a gutsy example of Moroccan roast lamb specialty, mechoui—it's served as a simple sandwich or as a laden plateful priced by weight. Cash only.
An airy 16th-century riad turned café turned library turned art gallery, Dar Cherifa is wonderfully airy spot to take a break from shopping for a pot of mint tea. They also have the occasional cultural evening, including poetry readings, traditional music, and storytelling.
You can dine on delicious adaptations of traditional dishes---such as tiny melt-in-the-mouth pastilla (sweet pigeon pie) filled with a vegetable puree---at this lovely restaurant with a reputation for nouvelle cuisine marocaine. Andalusian lutes and Gnaoua music accompany dinner, which is a fixed five-course tasting menu at 530 DH; lunch is à la carte, with a limited menu for children. Alcohol is served.
Vegetarians, vegans, and gluten-free diners may feel unloved in Marrakesh until they get to Earth Café, where they rule the roost. Generous portions are served all day at this wholesome little eatery that's tucked into a side alley near the main square. As you walk through to the seating areas out back you'll be tempted by the aromas swirling up from the open kitchen. Up the winding narrow stairs are cushioned seating alcoves with orange-painted walls and a balcony hung with tropical plants. A beetroot, ginger, and orange juice cocktail will perk you up, or try a satisfying flaky pastry stuffed with goat cheese, pumpkin, spinach, and apple. The only downside is that there isn't an open roof terrace, and as such it gets hot and rather claustrophobic. No alcohol is served, and it's cash only.
The menu at the English-owned Gastro MK features exceptionally fine modern-Moroccan cuisine. The menu is a balance of Moroccan and European influences aiming to be light and subtle to tempt those who are "tagined out'"; dishes include cauliflower couscous with raisins and capers or a deconstructed tagine of beef fillet with herb mash and zucchini. A five-course tasting menu (650 DH per person) is available upon request. Complimentary canapés are served 30 minutes before dinner and after-dinner digestifs, cigars, or sheesha pipes can be requested. Arrive early for pre-dinner cocktails on the gorgeous terrace. The Gastro MK is in such high demand that advance bookings and payment of a deposit are essential.
To the south of the square, this is a top choice for catching the sunset, but you'll have to compete for elbow room with all the amateur photographers who throng the best spot. Service is slow and soft drinks overpriced—but that's not unexpected for this bird's-eye view.
If you want to eat with the locals, this is the perfect spot, though be forewarned that the menu is meat-only. Everything is ordered by weight and you'll get side dishes of olives as well as a tomato and onion salad. Expect a crowd around meal times but service and dining are quick.
Perfectly positioned just opposite the entrance to the Saadian tombs, this Spanish-owned café is a welcome retreat for those who find themselves "kasbahed-out" at the end of a trek through the monuments of Marrakesh. The menu features Moroccan standards, as well as pizza, salads, and a cool gazpacho. An ornate Andalusian archway modeled on the mosque at Cordoba opens into a three-level restaurant finished with beige tadlak (a traditional, shiny, smooth effect) walls, wrought-iron balustrades, and bejmat tiling. The prices are steep (pizzas 90 DH, tagines 130 DH), but the food is fresh and well presented, and the shaded terrace has a great view across to the Moulay el Yazid mosque in this up-and-coming area.
Just off the Rehba Kdima ("Spice Souk"), L'Mida is a pleasant spot serving a fresh, modern take on Moroccan flavors. There are plenty of meaty options, but vegetables get the royal treatment in dishes like a seven-vegetable vegan couscous and Amazigh gnocchi with chestnut butter and garlic confit.
In a tiny garden, off one of the medina's main shopping streets, the French owner serves a constantly changing menu derived from fresh local ingredients; think enormous main-course salads or pizzettas topped with anything from carrots and apples to raspberries, mint, and beetroot. Homemade cakes, fresh-brewed coffee, and freshly squeezed juices are served through the afternoon. Come early as the main dish of the day usually sells out.
This French-run restaurant hidden at the souk's northern tip is regularly booked with upscale tourists and expats, and the candlelit roof terrace is a popular spot for balmy summer nights or predinner cocktails. The menu features traditional Moroccan fare as well as lighter international dishes such as sea-bass fillet served in a clam sauce, or vegetarian risotto. Originally an inn for passing merchants and their mounts, this three-story restored foundouk has a lot of original architectural features: solid old wooden beams, carved cedar ceilings, and wrought-iron balustrades around a central patio that opens to the sky, and it's decorated with statues and masks gathered from across West Africa. The ground-floor bar is open to nondiners. As you approach on foot or from your taxi drop-off, avoid the insistent locals who will offer to "guide"' you to the restaurant; instead, look for the uniformed restaurant staff bearing lanterns, who will walk you to the restaurant (tip them 20 DH).
Building on the success of his Café des Épices, Moroccan entrepreneur Kamal Laftimi opened this laid-back spot in the heart of the souks. The menu features classic Moroccan dishes, but there are plenty of options for vegetarians and pescaterians, as well as delicious desserts. Head to the terrace for comfortable seating. No alcohol is served.
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