Moroccan food: everything worth eating from the medina to the dunes

Almost every traveller eats a tagine within hours of landing in Marrakech. The clay pot, the conical lid, the steam of saffron and preserved lemon — it is the image on every menu and postcard. It is also genuinely delicious, and it tastes even better lifted off the embers at a camp under Erg Chebbi's stars. But treating tagine as the whole of Moroccan cuisine is like going to Japan and eating only ramen. Here is everything else worth a fork.

The tagine, properly understood

The word tagine means both the pot and the dish cooked in it. The conical lid traps steam and returns it as condensation to the base — a slow-braise that turns humble cuts extraordinarily tender, which is exactly why desert cooks rely on it when there is time and a bed of coals but no oven. The classic pairings are lamb with prunes and almonds (mrouzia), chicken with preserved lemon and olives, and kefta (spiced minced beef) with eggs. Each carries its own spice profile; the lemon chicken is the mildest and the one most travellers fall for first.

The best tagines rarely come from restaurants. Ask your guide to take you to a neighbourhood fondouk where the pots have sat on low heat since morning, eat one beside the fire at our Sahara camp, or arrange with us a cooking experience in a private home.

Pastilla — the Fassi triumph

If the tagine is Morocco's everyday dish, pastilla is its showpiece. A paper-thin warqa pastry encases slowly braised pigeon (or chicken), egg, saffron and fresh coriander — then the whole parcel is dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. Sweet and savoury together in a flaky shell. It originated in Fes, the northern gateway many of our guests use before the long run south, and the best versions are still found there, though Marrakech riads turn out a fine one for special dinners. A seafood pastilla has emerged in Essaouira and is worth the detour.

Couscous — the Friday ritual

Couscous is the dish Moroccan families gather around on Friday after the midday prayer, and the same generous platter often appears at our desert camps to mark the end of a trekking day. In its home culture it is not a restaurant dish — it is domestic, maternal and communal. The semolina is steamed three times over a vegetable broth, piled into a dome and dressed with slow-cooked turnip, courgette, carrot and cabbage, with lamb, chicken or vegetables alone. City restaurants serve it on Fridays and Saturdays; if you are there on those days, order it.

Street food worth stopping for

Djemaa el-Fna in Marrakech at dusk — often your last night in the city before the road to Merzouga — is the most theatrical food experience in Morocco. After 18:00 the square fills with charcoal smoke and the shouted invitations of stall keepers. The snail-broth stalls (numbers 14 and 32 have stood there for decades) serve a cumin-spiked broth you mine with a pin — odd, delicious and cheap. Grilled merguez in a crusty baguette, msemen (flaky griddle bread) with argan honey, and orange juice at a few dirhams a glass are the standards.

In Fes, the northern launch point for our desert circuits, head to Rcif — the lane of the spice merchants — where bissara (thick dried fava bean soup with cumin and a slick of olive oil) is eaten standing up at breakfast, bread dipped straight into the bowl. In Essaouira, sardines split and grilled over charcoal at the port are the defining bite.

Vegetarian and vegan eating in Morocco

Moroccan cooking is generous to non-meat eaters, though veganism is not widely understood and needs spelling out — including to a camp cook, whom we brief in advance. The salad starters — zaalouk (smoked aubergine and tomato), taktouka (roasted pepper and tomato), carrot with cumin, beetroot with chermoula — are all plant-based and arrive automatically at a traditional table. A plain vegetable tagine with olives and preserved lemon is on offer everywhere, including in the dunes. Vegans should flag smen (aged butter), used in couscous and some breads, and note that the starters can contain egg.

Cooking classes and private kitchens

A hands-on cooking session is one of the best half-days Morocco offers. The format we prefer begins with a guided souk walk to gather the ingredients — watching a spice merchant blend ras el hanout by hand alone justifies the morning — then a session in a riad kitchen, or out at our desert camp, learning three dishes. You eat what you make, with mint tea and the quiet pride of having actually done it. We fold this into our cultural tours and can arrange it as a standalone for guests staying independently.

What to drink

Morocco is a Muslim country; alcohol is sold in licensed restaurants and hotels but not everywhere. The default drink is atay — mint tea poured from height for froth and served in three glasses (the first is life, the second love, the third death, runs the saying), and there is little better than a glass of it pressed into your hands as the sun drops behind the dunes. Orange juice, almond milk and avocado smoothies are popular too. Tap water is treated but variable, so we supply bottled water throughout, camp included.

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