53 Best Restaurants in Morocco

Loved by locals and visitors alike, Dar Naji is one of the city's most authentically Moroccan, medina-based restaurants and features interesting dishes more often found in Moroccan homes. Look for trid (soft layers of pastry layered with a meaty sauce) and medfouna (a rustic stuffed bread). Prices are reasonable, and attention to the quality of the salads, tagines, and couscous dishes is unrelenting. 

Small but buzzy, this cash-only salad-and-crepe bar offers great-value healthy snacks and small meals, including DIY salads, quiches, and panini. It attracts local office workers, foreign residents, and tourists for its healthy food, excellent Italian espresso, and fresh juices and smoothies. Take a form and pen and design your own salad, picking the size, base, ingredients, and dressing to suit. It's often packed by midday, but service is fast.

Set among verdant gardens, this enchanting eatery offers a menu that encapsulates the Brittany region of France: think luscious salads and buckwheat crepes oozing with all you can imagine, as long as it's (mostly) French. The experience is made even better by the fantastic service and the pleasant, knowledgeable staff. Alcohol is served, and if you're looking for picnic fare, there's a wonderful array of charcuterie and cheeses on your way into the restaurant.

Located at the edge of town as you arrive from the direction of Ouarzazate, this terrace café with easy parking outside is a good place to stop for lunch or a drink. It serves hearty tagines, brochettes, salads, and other snacks; the clean restrooms are an added bonus.

Cheap and cheerful, this restaurant is possibly the best catch in town. This no-frills Moroccan street restaurant in the heart of Guéliz (near La Grande Poste) is packed at night with locals getting their fish fix. Choose from the sidewalk display of fresh seafood as you walk in, or simply ask for a mixed plate—sole, calamari, monkfish, prawns—all served with olives and wedges of lime. There are seafood salads, paella, and an array of grilled fish also to choose from.

There's no alcohol and it's cash only.

A nonprofit center established the restaurant to help women from difficult backgrounds learn culinary skills and earn an independent living and the result is this friendly, brightly furnished restaurant and garden terrace, which attracts locals and expats for its excellent Moroccan and international dishes. The menu changes weekly but always has a mix of traditional Moroccan and international choices. Friday is couscous day, but make a reservation in advance! No alcohol, but lots of freshly squeezed juices are served.

This restaurant located within a riad has stunning panoramic views from the rooftop terrace, along with delicious food. You'll find all the standard Moroccan dishes here, with a nice selection of well-portioned tagines.

Morocco is a magnet for fossil fans, and much of the activity centers on the town of Alnif, on Route 3454/N12 between Rissani and Tazzarine. About 13 km (8 miles) west of Alnif is Auberge Kasbah Meteorites where you can enjoy a simple lunch, a dip in the immaculate pool, and a two- to three-hour excursion with a guide who'll show you the best places to hunt for fossils and ancient stone carvings. There are also 30 bright, clean bedrooms should you decide to stay over so you can explore the region in greater detail.

If you're looking for light, healthy meals or snacks Ayaso functions as both a restaurant and a specialty food store catering to vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free diets. The fresh juices and smoothies are worth the stop alone.

Imported 100% Arabica specialty coffee beans and top-notch baristas make this Australian/Moroccan-owned spot a good place to settle in for a coffee alongside breakfast served all day or any of the inventive salads, sandwiches, and pastas. The service is efficient and the vibe is laid-back.

A good stop in the center of town, this popular bakery serves a wide range of breads, cakes, and traditional Moroccan pastries for breakfast, lunch, or a light snack. Highlights include buttery croissants, indulgent cakes, savory panini, and sandwiches. Enjoy them on the street-side terrace of the attached café and watch the world go by.

The multilevel terraced seating area at this café on the square means there are several prime viewing opportunities. It's one of the fancier cafés on the square, having been completely rebuilt in 2017. Stop in for a drink or ice-cream treat to cool down from the Moroccan sun. They also serve meals throughout the day. 

An outpost of the popular Café Clock in Fez, this so-called cultural café combines a fun vibe with tasty contemporary Moroccan cuisine. Signature dishes include camel burgers, a blue cheese and fig salad, veggie platters, and homemade ice cream. There's also a menu of cultural activities: exhibitions, live traditional gnawa music, local bands, cooking classes, and al halqa (traditional storytelling). No alcohol is served.

Though it's a bit past its prime, Café de France is a local institution and a great place for people-watching from morning till night. On the ground floor there's a tiny snack restaurant with bright plastic tables, serving sandwiches and quick bites until closing time. 

In keeping with the name, this café in the medina's "spice square" offers spiced teas and coffees along with a range of freshly squeezed fruit juices, smoothies, and light snacks, salads, and sandwiches. Ever popular, it expanded into the neighboring property and teeters over three levels with a great rooftop view over the veiled women selling basketware and woolly hats below.

No alcohol is served.

Spread over several floors, this cute café serves tasty Breton-inspired buckwheat crepes, good quality coffee, and refreshing fresh juices that are just the ticket on hot days. You can spoil yourself with some divine Moroccan pastries, too.

The Café Maure is a charming place in the Oudayas gardens of the kasbah to pause for a glass of tea and local pastries. The shaded terrace is decorated with mosaic tilework and looks across the river to Salé.

Open for lunch and dinner, this laid-back restaurant is difficult to find but well worth the search. Abdou himself, a rare and well-loved Tangier personality, serves up some of the freshest fish, simplest salads, and most perfect paella in the area. You can choose to sit indoors or at a table in the sandy maze of colorful and leafy outdoor spaces that lead out to a fine sandy beach sprinkled with tiny shells and beach umbrellas for hire. The best dishes here are the simply prepared fresh seafood plates. Take the first right about 30 feet after the rotary that puts you on Route de Rabat (N1) and at the near end of the Diplomatic Forest. If you see the Club de Tir, you've gone too far.

This small but clean café and guesthouse is next door to the Kasbah Telouet parking lot and Ahmed, the owner, is very knowledgeable of Glaoui history and can organize tours of the surrounding area. He is also happy to sit and chat as well as feed you well for around 70 DH.

If you do not wish to take a tour, politely make this known toward the beginning of your conversation.

It won't win prizes for design, but this cheap joint is perfect for a lunchtime or evening pit stop. Locals and visitors alike frequent this friendly little canteen just on the right before the road opens into Djemâa el Fna. Tagine pots stand two rows deep on the street stall outside, and a barbecue sizzles away. There are much more interesting specialties available on the menu than some of the other little snack-restaurants, including spiced aubergine tagine, sardine tagine, and pastillas. It's cash only and there's no alcohol.

Slightly more elegant than its hole-in-the-wall branch in the souks, Chez Lamine has a reputation for the best mechoui (whole roasted lamb) in town and couscous on Friday. Its street-side tables in Guéliz are regularly filled with Moroccan families on Friday and weekends; there's also inside seating. Apart from mouthwatering tagines, try the restaurant's other specialty, tangia marrakchia (lamb cooked very slowly for hours in earthenware jars). No alcohol.

Although the row of severed lambs' heads out front may not be everyone's idea of culinary heaven, Marrakshis love Chez Lamine Hadj Mustapha, and you'd be missing out not to try it. English TV chef Jamie Oliver chose this spit-and-sawdust street restaurant in a filming trip for a gutsy example of Moroccan roast lamb specialty, mechoui—it's served as a simple sandwich or as a laden plateful priced by weight.

Cash only.

This restaurant that also has a few simple guest rooms is a good stop-off point before the climb to the Tichka Pass. The kitchen is justifiably proud of its reputation and makes delicious french fries and outstanding kefta (spiced minced beef) brochettes. If you want to stay the night, rooms are 200 DH, with breakfast at 25 DH.

Vegetarians, vegans, and gluten-free diners may feel unloved in Marrakesh until they get to Earth Café, where they rule the roost. Generous portions are served all day at this wholesome little eatery that's tucked into a side alley near the main square. As you walk through to the seating areas out back you'll be tempted by the aromas swirling up from the open kitchen. Up the winding narrow stairs are cushioned seating alcoves with orange-painted walls and a balcony hung with tropical plants. A beetroot, ginger, and orange juice cocktail will perk you up, or try a satisfying flaky pastry stuffed with goat cheese, pumpkin, spinach, and apple. The only downside is that there isn't an open roof terrace, and as such it gets hot and rather claustrophobic. No alcohol is served, and it's cash only.

They serve a full café menu of breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner but the real draw is the glorious array of cakes, French macarons, cookies, and chocolates that grace the display cabinets at this beautiful French patisserie in upmarket Anfa. The interior is modern and airy but there's also a terrace where you can have coffee and watch all the beautiful people.

Come here for the best coffee and the best ice cream in town; its location on the main square is also great for people-watching.  Pick a shady seat on the inside of the terrace under a parasol to avoid the passing street hawkers.

To the south of the square, this is a top choice for catching the sunset, but you'll have to compete for elbow room with all the amateur photographers who throng the best spot. Service is slow and soft drinks overpriced—but that's not unexpected for this bird's-eye view. 

If you want to eat with the locals, this is the perfect spot, though be forewarned that the menu is meat-only. Everything is ordered by weight and you'll get side dishes of olives as well as a tomato and onion salad. Expect a crowd around meal times but service and dining are quick.

This tiny restaurant on a side street of central Guéliz is run by India-native John Jinendrom, who imports spices, like masala, directly from Europe. This means authentic-tasting Indian halal cuisine at local prices, which is a rarity in Marrakesh. The menu offers traditional dishes like butter-chicken curry, but the real house specialty is Masala Dosa, a huge stuffed pancake filled with dhal and your choice of vegetables, meat, or chicken. There are also homemade samosas, naan breads, and Indian ginger milk tea. The setting is very simple with small sidewalk tables perfect for warm weather dining; life-size Bollywood movie-star posters adorn the walls of the often hot and cramped restaurant interior.

It's cash only and there's no alcohol.

This small café right at the summit of Tizi-n-Test is the perfect place to take in the astounding view with some Moroccan cookies and mint tea on beautiful wrought-iron chairs made by the owner's son. It's also a good spot to stop along the road and wander up the hills.