Moroccan Food: 8 Dishes You Must Try

From tagine to the Berber pizza of the desert, a short guide to the flavours you will meet on the road.

Food is one of the great pleasures of a trip to Morocco. Spices are fragrant rather than hot, and every region has its specialities. Here are eight dishes to look for.

1. Tagine

Slow-cooked in a clay pot with a conical lid: chicken with preserved lemon and olives, beef with prunes and almonds, or vegetables. You will find it everywhere, from riads to desert camps.

2. Couscous

Traditionally eaten on Fridays with family, couscous with seven vegetables is a symbol of Moroccan hospitality.

3. Harira

A rich soup of tomatoes, lentils and chickpeas, perfect on a cool evening and the classic dish to break the fast during Ramadan.

4. Pastilla

A sweet and savoury pie of thin pastry, chicken or pigeon, almonds, cinnamon and sugar — a speciality of Fes.

5. Berber pizza (medfouna)

In Rissani and Merzouga, bread is stuffed with meat, onions and spices and baked in the sand or a clay oven. A must on a desert tour.

6. Tanjia

The dish of Marrakech: beef cooked for hours in a clay jar in the ashes of the hammam.

7. Grilled fish in Essaouira

Choose your fish at the stalls of the port and they grill it in front of you.

8. Mint tea

Green tea with fresh mint and sugar, poured from high above the glass. Accepting a glass is a sign of friendship.