Where to eat in Fez

Fez is full of visitors right now for the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music. But where to eat? The View from Fez takes a look at some of the options in the medina and in the new city.


FEZ MEDINA

*STREET FOOD is good - take your pick of any of the sandwich places around Bab Boujloud and the market at the top of Tala'a Kebira. Choose your filling from the display and watch as it's cooked on the grill. For around Dh20, you'll get half a round loaf, or a small baguette, stuffed with grilled chicken, tomatoes, onions and olives, or beef and liver, or merguez sausage. Chips or fried eggs are an optional extra. Many of the stalls also do vegetarian options with fried aubergine slices or green peppers.

*SELF-CATERERS are in for a treat with markets at the Bab Boujloud end of Tala'a Kebira and in R'cif. All sorts of meat (except pork, of course), fish and a wide array of fruit and vegetables are on display. Cheese is limited to a softish white variety wrapped in leaves - very tasty, too.

*BAB BOUJLOUD: there's a wide selection of restaurants near the famous Blue Gate, from well-known Thami's to Abdou's Restaurant Fassia, Restaurant Bouyyad, Rachid's and the Kasbah and several others. Choose one where the seatcovers appeal to your sense of style (gold with large bows, polka dots or zebra stripes?) and enjoy a fairly standard range of Moroccan traditional dishes. A three-course meal with water or mint tea will set you back around Dh100.

*CAFE CLOCK is in Derb Magana, just off Tala'a Kebira at the Water Clock and Bouanania Medersa. Excellent breakfasts, good coffees and teas, cafe food and the famous camel burger are on offer. The Clock also features art exhibitions and Sunday sunset concerts.

*F LOUNGE is well sign-posted about half-way down Tala'a Kebira and Tala'a Sghira on Zqaq Rouah, and offers tartines (open sandwiches) with camembert and walnuts, or anchovies and tomatoes and hamburgers. There's also a wide range of Moroccan dishes produced in the newly-enlarged kitchen. Relax with a shisha on the divans at the back!

*CHAMEAU BLEU is tucked away in Derb Tariana near the Bouanania Medersa and deserves much more recognition that it seems to get. Comfortable seating inside and a lovely terrace for evenings, the menu has good High Atlas trout and succulent lamb chops cooked on the charcoal grill, as well as pasta.

*RESTAURANT BERRADA is a little off the beaten track in Achebine, but well worth the effort. Traditional Moroccan fare is available and in such a wide array that you'll be taken into the kitchen to taste a little of each pot before you choose.

*FES ET GESTES has a lovely garden - the perfect place to escape the heat with a mint tea (see our review here). The lunch menu offers traditional Moroccan cuisine. Find it at 39 Arsat El Hamoumi in Ziat, phone 0535 63 85 32.

*NAJMAT SOUAFINE is a fairly new venture in Oued Souafine (see our review here). It has a roof terrace as well as a cool interior. Lunch is Dh120 and dinner Dh150. The emphasis is on light, fresh food.

*Brand new is AJI CHOUF in Ziat (see our review here) which features pizzas. For lunch you could also try the salads or terrine and well as a delicious dessert.

At the top-end of the market, here are some ideas for a special dinner:

*DAR ROUMANA is a guesthouse with wonderful medina views from the terrace and great chefs. They're very sensibly offering dinner at 18h00 so that you can eat a leisurely meal before heading off to the evening concert that starts at 20h30. A three-course dinner is Dh300, two courses (starter and main, or main and dessert) is Dh220, and wine is available. Open for dinner to non-guests by reservation before 10am: +212 (0) 535 741 637

*RIAD LES OUDAYAS: this beautiful riad in Douh has innovative twists on Moroccan standards served in the leafy courtyard. Wine available. Dinner only by reservation: +212 (0) 535 636 303.

*RIAD FES has a superb restaurant featuring traditional Moroccan cuisine. Reservations: +212 (0) 535 947 610. Good winelist.

*LA MAISON BLEUE is a large restaurant in a magnificent house on Place de l'Istiqlal, better known as Batha. It serves multiple courses of traditional food, accompanied by musicians. Set dinner with wine included Dh550 per person (vegetarian options only on reservation). Reservations essential: +212(0) 535 741 843

*Over at Oued Zhoun you'll find the very stylish PALAIS AMANI. The rooftop terrace is a good place for lunch when Mediterranean cuisine is served. The dining room is open in the evenings for more traditional fare. Reservations essential on +212 535 633 209. Wine available.

DRINKING

And what if you're longing for a beer or glass of cold gris on a hot summer evening?

*Right next to the Batha Museum, venue of Festival afternoon concerts, is HOTEL BATHA which has a pleasant bar and courtyard in which to quench your thirst.

*Handy for Bab al Makina and the free concerts at Boujloud Square is MEZZANINE, just outside the medina walls at the Jnane Sbile gardens. Mezzanine has leafy roof-top views, and serves good salads, pasta and tapas.

*The bar at RIAD FES in Zerbtana near Batha, also close to the Museum is set around a reflecting pool and is very smart.

dessert at Maison Blanche

FEZ VILLE NOUVELLE (New City)

*Top of the pops and very trendy for lunch or dinner is MAISON BLANCHE, at 12 Rue Ahmed Chaouki, opposite the Jnan Palace Hotel. It has excellent cuisine, a good wine list and a bar upstairs. +212 (0) 535 622 727.

*THE MAJESTIC is worth the trek outside town (ask for free transport) for its contemporary cuisine and lovely deck for alfresco meals accompanied by the thwack of tennis balls from the nextdoor tennis club. +212 (0) 535 729 999
*TROIS SOURCES also provides free transport and is a hearty sort of country-club place with wooden beams and stone walls. The food is excellent (see our review here). Weekend lunchtimes will be noisy with kids using the large pool. Reservations +212 (0) 535 606 532

fish is superb at Trois Sources

To see all the Fez Festival 2010 stories on The View from Fez, click HERE!

Fez Medina's new pizzeria

Aji Chouf (come and see!) is the name of this new restaurant in the Ziat quarter of the medina. The View from Fez team visited recently.




Owned and run by Chantal Safadi of the guesthouse Dar al Safadi and her manager, Anouar, the pizzeria is set in a traditional house with terrific views over the medina. Chantal is well-known for her excellent food, and the restaurant reflects her influence. In fact, Chantal tells us that her son, who's a chef in France, came to train the local staff in the fine art of pizza-making.

evening views from the terrace

The View from Fez team started with a delicious chef's salad and a chicken terrine with onion jam, each dish very reasonably priced at Dh25.

starters of Chef's Salad and Terrine

Pizzas came next - the Tangia topped with fresh tomatoes, capers, onions, anchovies and olives along with the cheese. The crust was delightfully thin and crisp. At only Dh50 for the so-called small size (23cm), and Dh65 for a large one (32cm), these were an excellent choice.

Tangia pizza

Some of the team still had room for dessert - a perfect chocolate fondant with vanilla icecream (Dh25) and espresso coffee (Dh10).

perfect dessert

Aji Chouf has several floors of intimate dining rooms for winter, or for when the sun is just too scorching for sitting on the terrace. With its lovely views and exceptionally reasonable prices, this is a very good option for lunch or dinner - and there's a pizza take-away service too.

Aji Chouf is at 17 Derb el Mokri, just round the corner from Fes et Gestes and opposite the new guesthouse, Dar Fes Medina. Telephone +212 (0) 535 635 178.

The Delights of Baking in Fez

The interior of our local bakery - one of many.

Every quarter of the Fez Medina has its own communal bakery, but they cook more than bread writes guest contributor Anne Marie Witulski.
Children carrying large metal pans with bread dough shaped in perfect circles to the public oven is a popular sight in the Medina. While fresh baked bread from the oven is delicious, you can make many other dishes at this local institution. Some families make pastries, cookies, and even cook fish and potatoes. We chose to make a familiar favourite, pizza, recently.

Our pizza ready to be taken to the bakery.

We were invited inside by the baker, Abdessalam, to take a look at the oven.It consists of a wood-burning fire and a large slab of cement enclosed in concrete.

Abdessalam, waiting for customers.

Items are placed through the metal door and onto the cement slab in front of the fire with the use of large wooden dowels. Abdessalam slides breads, pizzas, cookies and even main courses in and out of the heat at precisely the right moment. He keeps track of whose bread is whose and always replaces the bread to the correct metal pan aided only by his memory.

Taking our finished pizza from the oven.

His assistant, Mohammed, knows each families bread-making style and is able to return the bread to the customers without them saying a word. To the outsider, all the breads appear exactly the same, but to the experts, the subtleties of each family's bread making style are obvious.

Good enough to eat - which we did.

They seemed to welcome the change of pace of the pizza and took great interest in how long it would take in the oven. After less than 15 minutes, the pizza was done and the whole process costed only 2.5 dirhams!

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news