Lady’s Guide to a Marrakech Food Tour

Today I want to bring you my guide to a Marrakech food tour. This city in Morocco is famous for its street food, tagines, and more. I hope this post inspires you to travel to North Africa and taste your way through Marrakech.

Marrakech Food Tour

It’s sunset in Marrakech. On the roof terrace at Dar Les Cigognes riad, the scene is spectacular.

The sinking sun makes silhouettes of giant storks nesting on the rose colored walls of the royal palace, and a long table is set for dinner under the Moroccan stars.

I’m offered a glass of local wine, and as I put my nose to it, I breathe in a terroir redolent of exotic spices and souks.

Soon the sun disappears behind the walls of the Medina, and I focus my attention on a wine and olive oil tasting.

I try great Moroccan wines made in the Bordeaux and Cotes du Rhone styles, learning along the way that Syrah is the best wine to pair with Moroccan cuisine due to its spiciness.

I also sample a range of olive oils made from Picholine, Arbequina, and Picual olives from the Ourika Valley and Rahamna plains.

And that’s just the beginning of my Marrakech food tour. I’m here on a culinary press trip, which will take me and a group of journalists around the city with chef Keri Moss.

She won British MasterChef: The Professionals and has been given the unenviable task of having to impress a group of travel and food writers for the next five days.

Marrakech Dinner

As I sit down to dinner, I wonder what’s in store for me on this Marrakech food tour. I know it involves cooking classes, eating, and street food markets, but in what proportions and in what style I don’t know.

As a person of limited culinary ability, I’m afraid I’ll be filmed, yelled at for chopping vegetables wrong, or generally abused like everyone seems to be on cooking shows.

But none of that happens. Starting from the dinner on the rooftop, my Marrakech food tour introduces me to Moroccan cooking in all its forms—traditional, modern, and with creative twists.

That night I feast on dishes like classic pigeon pastilla from Tetouan and chicken seffa from Marrakech.

Lunch in the Marrakech Tangia Stalls

The following afternoon I have one of the most authentically local lunches I’ve ever had on my travels. It takes place at the tangia stalls just off the famous Djemaa el-Fna square.

A row of outdoor vendors makes Mechoui—lamb slow-cooked in underground ovens—and other dishes made in traditional clay tangias, skinny cousins of the famous tagines.

Behind them is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it doorway that leads up to a restaurant where we enjoy the Mechoui with salt and cumin, along with lamb cooked in fermented butter and gelatinous lamb hoof that tastes like barnyard.

It’s a great experience, and an authentic introduction to traditional Moroccan cuisine.

Marrakech Bread Ovens

The same goes for the bread ovens. Marrakech’s walled Medina is a labyrinth of tiny alleys and maze-like souks, and behind unmarked doors there are often surprises. The problem is that it’s impossible to tell which doors to knock on.

And that’s where local knowledge comes in. The benefit of being on a Marrakech food tour is that the locals know which ones open up onto pleasant surprises, including the tiny unassuming doors that lead into Marrakech’s communal bread ovens.

Every quarter of the Medina has one, and women from the surrounding area come daily to have their bread baked on the hot bricks.

Seeing the process is like peeling back the often touristy facade of the city and getting an authentic peek at the daily lives of the residents who call the Medina home.

Marrakech Farnatchi

The same goes for the hammams, bathhouses that are a weekly staple in the routine of all Marakshis.

But while most people see them from the inside, our Marrakech food tour takes us to the farnatchi, the man who has the job of stoking the fire that keeps the water in the hammam heated.

Behind a tiny door we discover a huge furnace where he sits tending the flames. Around him in the hot ashes sit clay tangias that local men have brought from the market full of the butcher’s daily special.

They leave them there to cook while they enjoy the hammam, then pick them up afterwards to enjoy their hot lunch.

We get to try some of this style of cooking one day back at Dar Les Cigognes when the owner—who’s more passionate about food than anyone I’ve ever met—sources camel meat and sends it in tangias to be cooked in the hammam ashes near the riad.

I’m a bit nervous to try camel for the first time, but between his preparation and Keri’s—one in milk and the other in a modified remoulata—I discover a delicious, flavorful meat with a taste similar to veal or lamb.

Moroccan Cooking Demonstration

And that’s not the only new flavor of the Marrakech food tour. Keri prepares three salads for our lunch the next day that blend the flavors and spices of Moroccan cooking with some of her own inventive ideas.

I’m impressed as she demos them for us on the roof terrace of the riad, and even more when I try them. The cardoon salad with tomato compote dressing is a particular favorite.

Moroccan Cooking Class

But Keri isn’t the only one who cooks on this trip. One day we do a hands-on cooking class in Marrakech.

First we learn how to make authentic Moroccan couscous in the beautiful surroundings of the roof terrace, then we make samosa-like stuffed pastries with the riad’s cooks in the kitchen.

I learn a lot about Moroccan cooking in the process, but above all, I have fun.

Nobody films me, nobody yells at me, and the closest I get to being humiliated for my subpar cooking skills is the sympathetic smile from the cook as she watches me laugh at how bad my pastry triangles are.

Marrakech Street Food Tour

Leaving the kitchen, we go on a Marrakech street food tour with a local guide. It’s amazing to discover hidden markets all over the Medina with her, and to get personal introductions to the vendors she knows and buys from regularly.

From the meat and produce markets to the spice souks, she shows us the best places to shop for food in Marrakech and the highest-quality purveyors around.

The Marrakech street food tour helps demystify the often overwhelming markets, and is one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Marrakech Sightseeing Tour

Beyond the markets, we see the main sightseeing attractions in Marrakech. On the first day we take a tour of the Medina with a great guide.

We walk around the 16th-century Saadian Tombs and the El Badi and Bahia Palaces, the latter of which is so similar to the Alhambra in Granada that I wonder if they’re carbon copies.

We see the beautiful Medersa Ben Youssef, a historic Islamic school with gorgeous architectural highlights, and walk through the famous souks in Marrakech.

At the end of the tour we sit for a rooftop mint tea at Le Grand Balcon du Cafe Glacier while the sun sets behind the Koutoubia Mosque, Marrakech’s most famous landmark.

Below us is the bustling Djemaa el-Fna square, which transforms from its empty daytime scene to its street food night scene as we look on.

Ourika Valley

When the bustle of the Medina gets intense, our Marrakech food tour itinerary takes us on a day trip to the Ourika Valley, an area at the base of the mighty Atlas Mountains.

The short drive takes us from the pink walls of Marrakech to the lush greenery of the valley, which is home to several culinary destinations that we stop to visit.

One is a Berber women’s co-op that produces argan oil, a beautiful nutty product found in a lot of Moroccan cooking and cosmetics.

The other is Le Paradis du Safran, a saffron farm run by Christine Ferrari, a Swiss expat who left her life in Europe to start growing the world’s most expensive spice in the foothills of North Africa’s highest mountain range.

We have an outdoor lunch there that includes freshly-baked bread from the brick oven right next to our table and a delicious lamb tagine with prunes and almonds.

Then we learn how to identify authentic saffron—the color should be dark red, the shape trumpet-like, and when you lick your finger and rub a filament, the resulting hue should be bright yellow.

Marrakech Massage

Back in Marrakech, I’m in need of some relaxation after a busy week on my Marrakech food tour. The Royal Mansour hotel has invited me to get a massage at its luxurious spa, and I indulge one morning inside its opulent walls.

The spa’s central courtyard is all white marble and latticework three stories high, and nearby is an indoor pool under a Victorian-style steel-and-glass atrium.

My massage is in a beautiful upstairs treatment room that smells like fresh flowers, and my therapist uses long, gentle strokes to lull me into a state of relaxation.

She doesn’t dwell too much on my tense areas, but the massage is relaxing and the spa is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

Dar Yacout Restaurant in Marrakech

Equally opulent is the labyrinth of rooms at Dar Yacout restaurant, where my Marrakech food tour group passes pools and fountains, tiled rooms and roof terraces before reaching our table for a traditional tagine feast.

The experience is great, if the food isn’t as good as what we enjoy at the riad.

Dinner at Riad Kaiss in Marrakech

On the final evening of the Marrakech food tour, we have drinks on the roof deck of the popular Kosybar, then head over to Riad Kaiss for dinner in the beautiful courtyard.

We have a seafood feast at Riad Kaiss with fresh produce from coastal Essouira, complete with Keri’s cooking, live music, and a belly dancer.

Everything from oysters and clams to a whole sea bass and tuna prepared three ways is laid before us. Not only is it a nice contrast to all the meat we’ve had on the trip, but also one of the most memorable meals overall.

Le Grand Cafe de La Poste in Marrakech

The next morning it’s raining—a rarity in Marrakech—and we escape with a trip out of the Medina for lunch at Le Grand Cafe de La Poste, a restaurant in Gueliz that’s popular with the French expat crowd.

The charming French riad manager at Dar Les Cigognes has recommended it, and it’s a great spot.

The colonial ambiance feels like it comes straight out of the film Casablanca, and the beef tagine with egg and cinnamon couscous is delicious.

Marrakech Food Tour: The Verdict

By the time I leave Morocco to fly back to London, the sun is setting and the atmosphere is just like it was on the first night of my Marrakech food tour.

But I’ve had five days of learning about Moroccan cooking and culture between those two sunsets, and I’m leaving after a deliciously well-rounded experience of the city.

The culinary trip struck just the right balance between food and culture, education and hands-on learning, and traditional cuisine and modern cooking.

I have a feeling the only disappointment will be when I try to recreate the recipes at home and discover I’m not quite as good a chef as Keri.

But that will give me a reason to travel back to Marrakech, and I can’t wait to do so. I hope you get a chance to visit and take a Marrakech food tour of your own.

If you want more, you can book a day trip to Essouira or a desert trip.

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