Moroccan cuisine is one of the richest in the world: gentle spices, sweet-and-savoury pairings, slow cooking and market produce. Travelling in Morocco also means sitting down to eat! Here are the 10 Moroccan dishes you must try, and our tips for tasting them in the right place.
1. Friday couscous
The ultimate family dish, couscous is traditionally shared at Friday lunch. Hand-rolled semolina is steamed over a broth of meat and seven vegetables. A variant worth trying: couscous tfaya, with caramelised onions and raisins.
2. Tagine
Tagine is both the clay pot with its conical lid and the stew that simmers inside it. The classics: lamb with prunes and almonds, chicken with preserved lemon and olives, kefta with eggs. Every region has its own recipe.
3. Pastilla
The pride of Fez, pastilla is a pie of thin warqa pastry filled with pigeon or chicken, almonds and eggs, sweetened with cinnamon. There is also a seafood version. Where to try it: pastilla and Fez cuisine.
4. Harira
A soup of tomatoes, lentils, chickpeas and fresh herbs, harira is inseparable from Ramadan, when it breaks the fast with dates and chebakia. You can find it all year round in small eateries.
5. Marrakech tanjia
A Marrakech speciality, tanjia is meat slow-cooked in a clay jar for hours in the hammam embers. Tender and scented with preserved lemon, it is best eaten in the shade of the souks: discover tanjia.
6. Skewers and kefta
On Jemaa el-Fna square or along the Atlas roads, grills smoke from morning to night: lamb skewers, spiced kefta and merguez, served with bread and a tomato-onion salad. The best place to try them: Jemaa el-Fna street food.
7. Moroccan salads
Before the main course, a round of cooked salads is served: aubergine zaalouk, pepper taktouka, cumin carrots, beetroot with orange… A colourful starter, perfect for vegetarians.
8. Essaouira grilled fish
On the Atlantic coast, you choose your fish at the stall and eat it grilled a few minutes later. Sardines, sea bream, squid: our favourite spot is Essaouira harbour.
9. Msemen and Moroccan breakfast
A flaky griddle pancake, msemen is eaten at breakfast with honey and butter, alongside baghrir (the “thousand-hole” pancake), amlou (almond and argan oil spread) and tea.
10. Mint tea and pastries
You cannot leave Morocco without sharing mint tea, poured from high above, with gazelle horns or ghriba. To learn all its secrets: the mint tea ceremony.
Want to go further? Learn to cook tagine and pastilla in our Moroccan cooking class in Fez, or find all our favourite tables in the Dining section.
Our tips for eating well in Morocco
- Eat where Moroccans queue: it is the best guarantee of freshness.
- Bread is eaten at every meal and often replaces cutlery: eat with your right hand.
- Vegetarians easily find vegetable tagines, vegetable couscous and salads.
- Drink bottled water and avoid raw vegetables in doubtful places during the first days.
