This Guest Post is by The Travel Dude:
When it comes to culture, religion, music and food, one of the best places to visit is Morocco.
The streets of Marrakesh, the Moroccan Capital are filled with street food options to high end cafes and restaurants providing you with a taste of local cuisine.
From dry tagines to perfumed fruit bowels, there is a huge range of local cuisine readily available at numerous food stalls on streets of Marrakesh. Beside many other attractions in Morocco, the local food and taste was one of my major inspirations during my stay.
I enjoyed both, the street food stalls and local cafes and restaurants some even designed for only foreigners. Both have different advantages and a different taste to offer.
- In a restaurant you might have a chance to choose food from a large menu of local cuisine.
- At food stall, your choices are limited, but you may find a completely different scenario if you are at any of the city’s food street with almost hundreds of stalls offering different foods.
The top chefs of local food are known as dadas, the housewives and female home cooks who were only cooking for their families few years ago. However, now with the developing interest of travelers into the local cuisine (especially ones cooked by a dada) more and more housewives came out to offer their dishes in small food stalls and boutique raid hotels. Most of the top restaurants also hired dadas for local cuisine while the other chefs cook the foreign dishes.
Restaurants: From Classical to Modern
If you are in Marrakesh, you cannot afford to miss a visit to city’s two top restaurants that I tried again and again during my stay: La Maison Arabe Hotel and its restaurant, Les Trois Saveurs and Al Fresco.
The head cooks in both restaurants are dadas just like many other top restaurants. If you are looking for some tasty local lamb or chicken tagines, there is no better place than Le Maison Arabe, a classical Moroccan restaurant. You can also learn some secret tips from a head chef and dada by signing in for the cooking classes in Le Maison Arabe.
On the other hand, Al Fresco and Café Des Epices are more modern options, but the food is as traditional as you find in any classic restaurant, yet with a modern look. Cafe Des Epices is situated at the rooftop in one of the most densely populated areas of the city. You need to check about the food options for the day in the afternoon as it will depend only on what is available fresh in the market for dada. You can find some great food from tagliatelle to tagines, crème brulee and couscous.
Next to Café Des Epices, Le Jardin is also a new modern addition in the city’s top class restaurants. The place is a good choice for visitors who are also looking for some local performances and dance. Beside a good place to dine with an extended menu full of local cuisine, there is a space for daily performances or a screen for a movie show. I had ricotta ravioli there and it was one of the best dishes I tasted during my stay.
Street Food
Besides having some of the finest and world class restaurants, the streets of the Marrakesh are filled with hundreds of thousands of food stalls and small restaurants that can provide you with the food and taste similar to the one you can find in any top restaurant, but at far cheaper price.
As soon as the sun sets in the Marrakesh, the streets like in the medina’s central square, Djemaa al Fna, comes to life and thrive throughout the night.
The key during your visit to any of the food street is to find a stall that is offering a one or two signature dishes instead of one that is trying to sell everything that you can think of. The ones that are specialized only in one dish provide you with better taste.
If you'd like to live not far from food street in Marrakesh, it's better to book the accommodation in advance. I used to do it on Hotelscan.com and Booking.com.
What is better?
For me, neither.
Restaurants and street food are good choices for local cuisine that allows you to taste some of the most popular dishes in Morocco. In restaurants, you have indoor space with some extra space where you can enjoy some performances and have a larger menu to select your food from, but if you are eating street food, you can have a same or better taste without even spending half of what you have to pay in restaurants. Some of the foreigners I met during my stay consider the food from street stalls unhygienic, but for me, it worth a try!!
Veronica wrote this guest post. She's a young traveler who is blogging on thetraveldude.net
