Marrakesh 2026: Dining

We can’t leave Marrakesh without talking about the food. Morocco stands in the very crossroads of Africa and Europe, a diversity that is reflected in its culture, architecture, and food. Typical Moroccan dishes combine spicy and sweet, sour and salty. Sweet fruits (quince, dates, prunes) are often added to meat dishes along with local spices, seasonings, and aromatic herbs give the traditional dishes its distinctive flavor.

The food in Marrakesh is a delicious, delightful, tagine of influences from Berber, Arabic, Jewish, Andalusian, African, and Maghrebi cultures. Walking through markets you will find a huge array of colorful spices, herbs, street food stalls and aromas, flavoring for its wonderful food.

Most people know Moroccan food for its heavy reliance on delicious spices such as saffron, turmeric, cumin, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, paprika, ginger and fennel just to name a few. There are also striking similarities with the Mediterranean diet in terms of the meats, fish, fruits and vegetables used in cooking. It consistently ranks with French and Italian cuisines around the world.

We ate at Dar Marjana which “combines authentic history, refined gastronomy, and a warm Moroccan atmosphere to offer an immersive and unforgettable culinary experience.” (from their website.) They are what we would call a dinner and entertainment experience — midway through dinner, a pair of Berbers joined us and began to sing, play drum, and a stringed instrument. Later, a pair of belly dancers moved through the tables, doing their thing. We found the music to be the best, as the dancing felt a bit contrived (Lisa wasn’t sure it was authentic, it may have been the LED-lighted “fairy wings” that led to the doubt.)

As was so often the case in Marrakech, the exterior is unassuming, even a bit daunting. Once through the front door, you move through a dark passage to another door. During opening hours the entrance is manned by a guard who respectfully escorts you down the now candlelit passage through the front door into a huge open courtyard with a low fountain, palms, banana trees, and all manner of foliage backlit by subtle lighting.

They serve one of four set menus, and alcohol is available. The largest menu, Marjana, includes several small plates of salads, three mains, and a dessert; it is accompanied by a (non-alcoholic cocktail, water, wine, digestif, and mint tea). The Discovery menu is only two mains, and no digestif. The smallest is the “Light” menu, which had a choice of two starters, one main, and no drinks included. It was the only one that offered Briwates (briouates). The choices for mains included Pigeon Triad (a specialty of the house), Chicken or Vegetable Bastilla, Pickled Lemon Farm Chicken, Lamb/or Veal Tajine with prunes and apricots or Seasonal Vegetables, Makfoul Tajine (specialty of Marrakech), Vegetable Tajine, or Royal Couscous. Desserts were a choice of Almond Pastilla, Orange and Cinnamon Salad, or
Moroccan Pastries (cookies).

It was lovely, tasty, and although we wouldn’t go again on our own, we would gladly join friends to enjoy the experience. To be clear, the food was great, although nothing particularly stands out.

Le Trou au Mur is described as chic, laid-back, and intimate, and that was not at all our experience. Perhaps because we were there at lunch rather than dinner, it was simply a nice meal on an outdoor terrace. It’s menu is far more Mediterranean, than Moroccan, and everything was delicious.

We shared a chicken and spinach filo pastry cigar, a salad made of carrots, cabbage, almonds and beetroot served with a fresh ginger and tomato sauce, and al-dente green beans with garlic, almonds and preserved lemon. It was a delicious lunch with fresh flavors and bright textures, perfectly done.

Most of our other meals were at the hotel, in their Pavillion restaurant (terrace, pool side) and at TFAYA Brasserie. TFAYA was a fascinating experience but not in the “ooo such exotic food in a new and mysterious land!” kind of way (although there was some of that); no, it was more in the “first diners on the first night of a whole new restaurant concept” kind. Apparently they had literally put the finishing touches on a new menu, by their new chef, for their flagship restaurant, and as is typical for Americans (or at least us) dining outside of the US, we were the first reservation of the evening. Because of this, service that was probably solicitous on a normal night was amped up to desperate-for-mom’s-approval level. We were checked in on after every dish by at least our server; several times it was the restaurant manager and at least once it was the chef. It wasn’t every 3 minutes and it never got annoying, but it definitely made for an unusual experience.

There were many small plates, and we didn’t exactly take notes, so to the best of our memory, we had: briouates (shrimp, cheese, and spinach with cheese), crispy prawns with a smoked bell pepper hummus, seafood pastilla with an aioli sauce, lamb shoulder cooked 8 hours Hargma-style with white bean hummus, and Doukkali couscous with lamb and vegetables. Our dessert was “Orange”: madeleine-style cookie, orange jelly (a kind of gummy-like candy dipped in sugar), and carrot cardamom sorbet. We were offered coffee and, when we declined, given a plate of “Moroccan Pastries” (cookies). It was a lot.

Everything was delicious, but the lamb shoulder (which they were very proud of) was very fatty and had an unpleasant mouthfeel as a result. The dessert was very pretty, but too much sweet after such a large meal. So what did they tell them when they asked? Mostly that our meal was amazing, although there were a couple of oddities.

Pavillion’s menu was a riotous blend of Mediterranean, Peruvian (!), and familiar. Stand out dishes included the Confit Lamb Shoulder With Shiitake Chimichurri Sauce And Truffled Cauliflower Steak, Creamy burrata, confit tomatoes, crunchy Greek vegetables, Spider crab meat, charred avocado, yuzu and ginger vinaigrette, Prawn Ha kao, vegetable gyozas. We also enjoyed their Omakase nigiri, which included Tuna with a ponzu salsa, salmon with a anticuchera salsa, and tiger prawns with a abura sauce and their Selection Pavillon, which was lobster with limeño sauce and saffron aioli, wagyu Beef with chimichurri sauce and caviar, and a flambéed sardine with lemon confit dashi mayo. Literally nothing was bad, it all was good or great.

Now seems like a good time to explain what some of these dishes are.

Tagine
When people think of Moroccan cuisine, tagine is usually one of the first dishes they think of. Tagine is a slow cooked stew of meat, with a variety of fresh fruity ingredients such as apples, apricots, pears, raisins, quinces, olives, dates and prunes as well as vegetables. Typical spices include ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, saffron, cumin and paprika, and additional flavors such as honey and nuts are also typically added. The tagine is the clay pot this dish is cooked in.

Briwat (briouat)
Briwat are scrumptiously sweet, stuffed, triangle-shaped pastry turnovers that have been deep-fried. Stuffed with meat and cheese with some simple seasonings (we most often got them in trios of meat, cheese, and vegetables), locals usually dip them in warm honey before eating.

Bastilla (B’stila)
Bastilla is a savory-sweet meat pie with a mix of sweet and salty flavors in a multi-layered phyllo dough. Traditionally, the filling consisted of pigeon meat and cinnamon-toasted almonds, seasoned with various spices such as saffron, cinnamon, and fresh coriander. Today it’s more often chicken.

Couscous
Couscous is a versatile side dish made from semolina and water, a bit like rice but consists of thousands of tiny, steamed balls of wheat. It’s a staple ingredient in much of Northern Africa and is typically served in a stew with vegetables and spices. It can be served as a side dish or a main couscous dish is also quite common.

Pastilla (Pastella)
Pastilla is a meat or seafood pie in Maghrebi cuisine made with warqa dough, which is similar to phyllo. Once baked, the pie is topped with a decorative lattice design made with cinnamon and caster sugar. Warqa sheets are made by daubing a wad of dough against a hot, flat pan called a tobsil, which leaves a paper-thin layer of dried dough on the surface of the pan. The pastilla stuffing, which can be prepared in advance, is arranged in layers. The first layer is made of pieces of shredded poultry meat that have been sautéed with herbs and spices, the second layer is an egg mixture, and the third and final layer consists of ground toasted almonds mixed with caster sugar and ground cinnamon. The individual pastry leaves and the assembled pastilla are brushed with clarified butter, while the powdered sugar and cinnamon top design can be enhanced with the addition of almond paste.