Morocco Travel Guide

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Cuisine

Fusion isn't a new trend in Morocco, where the cuisine is a blend of Mediterranean, Arabic, Jewish, Persian, West African and Berber influences. Meals range from the diffa, an elaborate multicourse feast featuring elegantly presented couscous and grilled meats, to quick bites of Merguez sausages and shwarma (spit-roasted lamb sandwich) at a curbside snak, or casual restaurant. Produce is seasonal, grown locally and typically without chemical pesticides or fertilizers. Local specialties are often grown in small quantities, so the fresh cherries you may enjoy in Sefrou might be impossible to find in Agadir. Although some sit-down Moroccan restaurants now offer à la carte menus, a three-course fixed-price menu is still common at dinner. Restaurants in cities and large resorts offer a good selection of food, including typical Moroccan fare, plus French, Italian, Spanish and fusion dishes. Many souk stalls sell kebabs (brochettes), often served with harissa (hot pepper sauce).

Things to know: Laws on alcohol are fairly liberal (for non-Muslim visitors) and bars in most tourist areas stay open late. Wines, beers and spirits are available to tourists. Muslims are forbidden to drink alcohol. By law, no-one is allowed to drink alcohol in view of a mosque or during Ramadan, although tourist establishments sometimes flout this rule. Locally produced wines, beers and mineral waters are reasonably priced, but imported drinks tend to be expensive.

National specialties:
• Harira (a spicy tomato-based soup).
• Pastilla (a pigeon-meat pie layered with flaky dough and dusted with cinnamon and sugar).
• Couscous (a savoury semolina dish cooked with local vegetables and/or meat).
• Tajine (a rich, fragrant stew, with some combination of lamb, chicken or fish with onions, olives, almonds, tomato, herbs or dried fruit).
• Mechoui (slow-roasted stuffed lamb or beef).

National drinks:
• Mint tea (aka ‘Berber whiskey') is strong green ‘gunpowder' tea mixed with fresh mint and heavily laced with sugar.
• Coffee is French press, espresso or Turkish style.

Legal drinking age: 18.

Tipping: Tips range from a few Dirhams for cleaning service to 5-10% of total meal cost. Tipping of taxi drivers is not expected, but local guides rely on this source of income.

Nightlife

Morocco offers a variety of diversions nightly, including bars, discos and restaurants, often with live music or belly dancing as part of the evening's entertainment. The party usually gets started around midnight, when dining tables are shoved out of the way to accommodate serious hip-shaking, and the fashionable make their entrance in nightclubs. There are also casinos in Marrakech, Mohammedia, Tangier and Agadir. Be prepared for only low-key, or no, entertainment in smaller centers. High-stakes entertainment can't compare to the cheap, fantastic thrills of halqa, the street theater performances by acrobats, musicians and cross-dressing belly dancers who perform for spare change in city squares across Morocco, especially Tangier and the Djemaa el-Fna in Marrakech (UNESCO's World Heritage site for oral history).