When we are visiting a new country we love to savour the local food. It’s also important, however, to ensure we do not overspend on our budget as by travelling the world rather than holidaying we have less to spend each day. For this reason researching where the locals eat beforehand and reading reviews really helps.
Learning to Cook Moroccan Style:
In Marrakech there seemed to be quite an abundance of places to attend cookery classes where afterwards you eat what you have made.
The Culinary Museum which we visited in one of my previous articles,
https://amidlifeadventure.org/2025/09/17/a-third-day-in-marrakech-from-bahia-to-culinary-adventures/
not surprisingly, offered cookery classes which you could book on line in advance.
I had also discovered that the Riad Shaden, where we were staying, also offered this facility and I liked the idea of supporting the establishment in this way.
I booked, in advance, for Day 2 of our trip knowing that Day 1 was going to be quite full on with various tourist sites to visit and, therefore, thinking it would be quite nice to have a restful second day.
On our arrival at the Riad, the Manager- Said reconfirmed with us that we still wished to go ahead with the class and enquired whether we wanted to cook in the morning to eat at lunchtime/evening or whether we preferred to cook in the afternoon for the evening. We opted for the former and to eat at 1p.m.
At breakfast on Day 1 we were given some menu options so they could prepare the dry ingredients beforehand. From the menu we picked an aubergine starter, two mains – chicken with olives and beef with prunes and then two desserts -fruit salad and bananas in pastry.
As Day 2 dawned we finished breakfast and then met up with Mohammed, who spoke superb English and managed the Riad whenever Said was away. Our first task was to accompany Mohammed out onto the streets of the Medina so we could purchase the raw ingredients we would need for our cooking. I cannot lie I was somewhat nervous, in advance, about hygiene standards with all the shops opening outwards onto the often crowded streets. The retailers obviously all knew Mohammed but it was really interesting to watch everything being prepared once he had ordered.
At the meat counter, for example, the owner cleaned the surface of his counter down in between every sale so as to avoid cross contamination. When we went to purchase our chicken there were live chickens in a cage at the rear of the shop but Mohammed explained that when they are going to fry and then boil chicken for a dish they only ever buy frozen chicken, apparently it has a better flavour.
When purchasing herbs, vegetables, spices, couscous, rice etc everything is sold as per your request. For example if you only want 2 dirhams of couscous then that is what the shopkeeper will weigh out. There is no set minimum or maximum quantity.
It reminded me very much of my teenage years when there were no supermarkets in the countryside where I lived and everyone walked into the village to purchase their shopping using a pull along trolley and visited a variety of shops e.g. the butcher, the baker, the grocery store, the chemist etc.
Shopping in Marrakech was a lively and interesting experience. The smells, the colours, the vibrancy were just exciting.
Returning to the Riad, Mohammed introduced us to Said’s wife who apparently does all the cooking every day at the Riad making, for example, all the traditional breads and pancakes for breakfast every morning and the small biscuits and cakes we were offered on our arrival. As she wasn’t adept at English, Mohammed acted as our interpreter for the whole session.
We were issued with white aprons although I had come prepared with my own. All the dry ingredients and spices were already weighed out for us but we prepared everything else as per her instruction. It was a really lovely experience and as hubby and I cook a lot at home we weren’t too daunted by what we were asked to do.
This was a great opportunity to also be able to glean additional information about classic Moroccan cuisine. We learnt, for example, that couscous is not an accompaniment to a meal but a main meal which is dressed up with spices, vegetables and/or meat. Tagines are served also as a main meal with no rice or couscous accompaniment but sometimes with bread on the side.
We were able to write down the ingredients before starting each dish and then we added the cooking instructions as we went along. This enabled us to bring the recipes home and we have a family meal planned to show off our skills shortly.
Everything we cooked was served to us at our table at the designated time and we couldn’t believe some of the flavours we were able to experience. The banana dessert was so simple but the addition of cinnamon inside the filo pastry before frying really added that something extra.
Eating and Drinking:
During our trip to Marrakech we were never daunted by the menus we came across on our daily excursions and as everyday life is so much cheaper here we chose to eat out every day.
We always found that the staff were really helpful and friendly, with one exception which I will come to later, and most menus were presented mainly in French and English. We were keen to sample local cuisine so avoided anything “international” and never even entertained the idea of buying “takeaway” food such as pizzas and burgers. Unfortunately as Said explained to us, access to the internet has brought Western food into the lives of the Moroccan people particularly children and teenagers which I personally feel is incredibly sad and so they are keen to experience such food and hence it is on offer in the Medina!
We also avoided the myriad of street food sellers purely because unlike hubby I do not have a “cast iron stomach” preferring to eat in cafes, restaurants and patisseries.
Breakfast:
We ate breakfast every day at our Riad where we were presented with a selection of tiny serving bowls with honey, two types of local jam and butter. Yoghurt and fruit were a staple alongside a different daily bread or pancake.
On our first morning we got to experience a spongy, honey-comb like pancake which we later discovered was called “Baghrir”.
On our second morning we sampled “Batbout” – a small, fluffy bread, similar to a pitta and on Day 3 we ate “Msemmen -a flaky, square-shaped Moroccan pancake.
Morning/Afternoon Tea:
It wasn’t difficult to find somewhere to drink or eat mid morning or mid afternoon when we needed to take a break from sightseeing.
One morning we had some lovely cold juices and an array of traditional Morrocan cakes at the Museum of Culinary Arts:
And on another day we stopped mid afternoon for tea and amazing cakes at the Patisserie des Princes. These wonderful French pastries are a hangover from when the French governed the lands.
Lunch:
We ate lunch or an evening meal everyday.
This was the menu in La Jardin Secret which we visited for lunch on our first day out exploring:
It was lovely to be offered the opportunity to have a “Virgin Cocktail” as even in the UK this isn’t always the case so we tried a “Medina” and a “Menara”. We ordered an “Exotique” salad and a “Cesar” salad and shared an Assortment of Briouates.
Briouates are small, triangular or cylindrical parcels made from warqa, a delicate, paper-thin dough similar to filo pastry. These were really tasty and not dissimilar to an Indian samosa.
Evening Meal:
Exploring the main Jemaa el-Fna square in the early evening before it became too busy I had read really good reviews on the Zeitoun Cafe but when we arrived hubby wasn’t sure and instead wandered off to the Cafe Rouge and having examined the menu decided we should try it. The food on presentation looked ok with hubby choosing this couscous dish:
Whilst I chose a beef and apricot tagine
What a huge mistake! Both of the meals may have looked ok at first but were inedible. My beef was so tough you seriously couldn’t cut it with a knife and hubby’s couscous had vegetables that tasted like they were weeks old. Bland and tasteless.
In any other restaurant I would have returned the food and refused to pay. But the waiters in this particular establishment didn’t appear to speak very good English, appeared from the onset as not particularly friendly towards tourists and were uninterested in the clientele so we left our food and departed.
Please do not be put off by this one experience all the other food we had in Marrakech was authentic, tasty, well presented and flavourful.
Marrakech was a new experience for us but one we truly enjoyed and I am now researching a road trip to explore more of this wonderful country…….
I hope you have enjoyed my six part series about this adventure and feel free to comment or ask any questions about it
A Midlife Adventure 