Moroccan Food Guide: The 15 Dishes You Should Try in Morocco

Moroccan cuisine is the product of a thousand years of culinary exchange, with Berber, Arab, Andalusian, Ottoman, and French influences layered into a food culture of extraordinary depth and variety. The spice vocabulary alone (ras el hanout alone contains up to 30 spices) puts most Western cuisines to shame. The best Moroccan food is not found in tourist restaurants near Jemaa el-Fnaa; it is found in homes, in neighborhood hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and in the market stalls that have been serving the same dishes for generations. Here are 15 dishes that define Moroccan cooking.

Tagine: The clay pot and the technique are inseparable. A tagine is slow-cooked in a conical clay vessel that traps steam and returns it as moisture to the ingredients: chicken with preserved lemon and olives, lamb with prunes and almonds, kefta meatballs in tomato sauce, and vegetable tagines fragrant with cumin, ginger, and turmeric. The key to a great tagine is the quality of the preserved lemons (made from local lemons pickled in salt) and the spice balance. Tourist restaurants often produce watery, underseasoned versions; family-run places get it right. Pastilla: The most extraordinary dish in Moroccan cooking, a flaky warqa pastry filled with spiced pigeon (or chicken), eggs, almonds, cinnamon, and a dusting of powdered sugar. Sweet and savory in the same mouthful. A great pastilla is one of the best things you will eat anywhere in the world.

Couscous: Friday is couscous day in Morocco, the dish that every Moroccan family eats together after Friday prayers. Seven-vegetable couscous (turnips, carrots, courgette, pumpkin, chickpeas, cabbage, and onion) with either lamb or chicken, the grain steamed three times over the broth. Nothing like the couscous sold in supermarkets in Europe. Harira: The Ramadan soup that has become a year-round staple, a thick, fragrant broth of tomatoes, lentils, chickpeas, lamb, vermicelli, and coriander. Usually served with hard-boiled eggs and dates during Ramadan; available at soup stalls in medinas throughout the year for 15–20 MAD. Msemen: Layered flaky flatbread cooked on a griddle, eaten at breakfast with argan oil honey or folded around kefta and harissa for a street lunch. The best msemen you will ever eat is from a woman cooking it on a hot stone in a medina souk.

Street food essentials: Brochettes (skewered lamb or beef grilled over charcoal, served with bread and harissa), makouda (spiced potato fritters sold by street vendors), snail soup (escargot in Moroccan spices, a Marrakech speciality available from carts around Jemaa el-Fnaa), fresh-squeezed orange juice (2–5 MAD, available on every corner), and kemia, small plates of olives, preserved lemons, and vegetable dips that arrive before any restaurant meal. Mint tea: Morocco's national drink, poured from height to create foam, heavily sweetened, and refilled repeatedly. Refusing mint tea is rude; accepting it and drinking slowly is one of the great pleasures of Morocco.

Where to find the best food in Fez and Marrakech: In Fez, the restaurant street near Bou Inania Madrasa has good traditional cooking at reasonable prices. Cafe Clock (Derb el Magana) for a modern take on Moroccan cuisine and the famous camel burger. The Rcif market for fresh produce and street food eaten standing. In Marrakech, Nomad restaurant for excellent modern Moroccan cooking, and the food stalls at Jemaa el-Fnaa for the evening street food experience. For the most authentic eating of all: ask your guide to take you for lunch at a restaurant with no English menu and no photos on the wall.