Fès is not the kind of city that rolls out a red carpet and hands you a menu in five languages. It doesn’t need to. Fès knows exactly who it is, and it expects you to catch up. This is a place where you can get gloriously lost in a 9th-century medina, hear the call to prayer echo off ancient walls, and suddenly find yourself standing in front of a bubbling cauldron of something delicious while an old man gestures at you with a ladle. If you’re hungry and brave, you’re in the right place. And if you’re indecisive, just accept you’ll be grazing your way from one tiled alley to the next until your waistband begs for mercy.
The thing to remember in Fès: the best food often comes with zero signage, no website, and a seating arrangement that involves a plastic stool and whatever free shade is available. Forget tablecloths. Trust your nose, follow the locals, and let your stomach do the navigating. It helps to develop a sixth sense for steam, laughter, and queues of elderly men drinking tea. That’s where you want to be. When in doubt, pick the place with the most arguing. It usually means the food is worth shouting over.
Start in the heart of the medina, around Bab Bou Jeloud. It’s touristy, yes, but it’s also where local life still thrives if you scratch just beneath the surface. Just past the gate, there’s a little no-name stall where a man in a white apron grills liver skewers like it’s a sacred rite. You’ll know it by the smell: charred meat, cumin, and smoke. Grab a few brochettes, wrap them in khobz, and eat standing up like everyone else. Wash it down with a glass of spiced tea poured from a height that suggests flair more than necessity. Sit on a step next to a man in a djellaba scrolling through football scores, and you’ve more or less blended in. Bonus points if you can name the top three Fassi footballers without Googling.
Wander deeper into the labyrinth and you’ll start to see how food is stitched into the rhythm of daily life here. A man stirs chickpeas in a tomato broth from a pot balanced precariously on a gas burner. Another sells boiled eggs and cumin salt from a folding table. Women in patterned aprons roll out msemen next to the souk, flipping it with the kind of wrist action that suggests decades of breakfast-making. Thami’s is a humble spot with a laminated menu and enough charm to convince you it belongs in your will. The kefta tagine comes bubbling with eggs poached directly in the sauce, the kind of dish that will haunt your dreams in a good way. It’s cosy, unpretentious, and somehow always just what you needed. The waiter may not write down your order, but somehow it arrives anyway, just as the adhan rolls in from four directions.
Swing past Place Seffarine where the coppersmiths are busy forging things that look too beautiful to use, and duck into one of the hidden eateries for bissara. This thick, velvety fava bean soup costs next to nothing and tastes like it belongs in a velvet robe. People eat it hunched over, dunking chunks of bread into bowls that could double as medieval cauldrons. Add a swirl of olive oil and a dash of cumin, and you’ve got breakfast of champions—if champions take long naps afterwards.
For those with a sweet tooth (or even just a sweet molar), there’s the man who sells chebakia near the spice market. He won’t say much, but his honey-soaked pastries speak for themselves. Fried to a deep gold, twisted into floral shapes, and heavy with sesame, they come wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper and the general vibe of satisfaction. If it’s nearing Ramadan, expect to queue behind grandmothers with serious opinions about what makes a proper chebakia. Some of them are happy to tell you, at length, whether you want them to or not.
Keep walking along Talaa Kebira, where a thousand smells compete for your attention. Fresh bread. Melting sugar. Frying sardines. You might stumble across a vendor ladling out snail soup—babbouche—into tiny bowls. The snails themselves are secondary. It’s the broth you’re here for: peppery, minty, slightly medicinal in a way that makes you feel instantly more philosophical. People sip it slowly, eyes half closed, like they’re listening to a jazz solo. Ask the vendor how it’s made and he’ll probably just raise an eyebrow and say something cryptic about his grandmother’s cauldron.
If you’re seeking couscous done right, track down Restaurant Nejjarine. Hidden behind the carpenters’ souk and looking like someone’s closed-up garage, it opens into a room where couscous is treated with reverence. Soft grains, vegetables arranged like a still life, tender meat tucked beneath the mountain of fluff. If lamb with prunes is on offer, just say yes. You’ll get mint tea, you’ll get oranges dusted with cinnamon, and you might get drawn into a debate about who has the best olives in the region. Warning: there is no right answer, only increasingly passionate opinions.
Every now and then, you need a rooftop. That’s where Café Clock steps in. Yes, it’s in all the guidebooks. No, it doesn’t matter. The camel burger is oddly excellent, and the view over the rooftops is the kind that makes you pause mid-sentence. The place hosts storytelling nights, oud concerts, and the occasional calligraphy workshop, because why not? The menu leans healthy-ish, but the vibe is indulgent in a very Fassi intellectual kind of way. Order an avocado smoothie, pretend you understand Andalusian poetry, and bask in the breeze. If you eavesdrop on the table next to you, chances are they’re plotting an artisan cheese cooperative.
Late at night, near Bab Rcif, a new scene unfolds. Stalls light up under flickering bulbs. Msemen sizzles on flat griddles. Harira bubbles in enormous pots, thick with lentils and tomatoes and spices you can’t name. This is the midnight refuelling station. Workers, students, night owls—all here for warmth and familiarity. No menus, no small talk. Just hand over your coins and receive comfort in edible form. If you hang around long enough, someone might offer you a boiled egg or half their loaf of bread. Fès has a way of feeding you with more than just food.
Further afield in Ville Nouvelle, the modern part of town, things get glowier and meatier. Neon-lit grills spin whole chickens in their own fat, basted and bronzed like some sort of poultry sunbathers. Locals pile in with friends, order birds by the kilo, and swipe every last bit up with torn bread. You’ll find avocado juice so thick you could build a house with it, and fries served in paper cones with chilli salt and no apologies. Some places even have TVs showing three football matches at once, just in case your dinner conversation needs a bit more drama.
And if you’ve somehow saved room for dessert, follow your nose to a cart serving sfenj. These Moroccan doughnuts are hot, elastic, slightly oily, and worth every second of the inevitable sugar crash. The vendor will toss them into a paper sleeve, sprinkle sugar liberally, and hand them over before you’ve even finished your last bite. Don’t bother asking for napkins. Just lick your fingers and carry on.
Eating like a local in Fès is part scavenger hunt, part history lesson, part edible therapy. No one will hand you a map. You have to find your own path, your own favourite spot, your own snack that haunts you months later. It’s a little chaotic, occasionally confusing, but always delicious. And somewhere between your first bite of bissara and your final crumb of msemen, you’ll realise Fès isn’t just feeding you—it’s letting you in on something. A rhythm. A ritual. A recipe passed hand to hand and never written down. It doesn’t perform for you. It simply is. All you have to do is show up hungry and pay attention.
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