Skip to main content
A Moroccan home spread: tagine, bissara, lentils and pastilla with bread

Cook Fassi food, in Fes

9 hands-on cooking classes in riad kitchens, the medina souks and the countryside. You shop the souk, roll bread, fold pastilla or slow-cook a tagine, then eat what you made. Vegetarian, vegan and family classes too. Each runs private or small-group, quoted for you.

Plan my classSee the classes
  • Private or small-group
  • Vegetarian and vegan classes
  • Children welcome on family classes
Moroccan dish. Photo: Abdeaitali, CC BY-SA 4.0

A full meal, from the souk to the table

Shop with the cook in Fes el-Bali, then cook in a riad kitchen and sit down to what you made: salads, tagine, couscous, or the slow Fassi dishes like pastilla and mrouzia.

Cones of spices and sacks of grain at a spice stall in the Fes medinaAbout 4–5 hoursRiad class + souk shoppingShop the Fes el-Bali food souks with your cook, then carry the bags back to a riad kitchen and cook a full Fassi lunch from what you bought.See the classA golden pastilla on a zellige-topped tableAbout 5–6 hoursFassi specialtiesA long, serious class for keen cooks: the celebration dishes Fes is known for, from a sugar-dusted pastilla to honeyed mrouzia, Ramadan harira and rfissa.See the classA tagine being assembled with layers of carrot, potato, green beans and parsley on a home stoveAbout 4–5 hoursTagine & couscousThe two pillars of Moroccan cooking, done properly: a sweet lamb tagine and a kefta tagine on the fire, and couscous rolled by hand and steamed three times.See the classA vegetable tagine with carrots, beans, squash and potatoes built into a cone, chips on the sideAbout 4 hoursVegetarian & veganMoroccan home cooking without meat, and nothing missing: bissara, cooked salads, a vegetable tagine and seven-vegetable couscous with tfaya.See the class
Sacks of spices and dried red chillies at a spice stall in the Fes medina

Every class starts where a Fassi cook starts: at the stalls.

Fes el Bali, Fes

Bread, sweets, and classes for families or the farm

Dough taken to the neighbourhood oven, almond pastries and chebakia, spice blends and tea. Then a short class sized for children, and a day at a farm outside Fes with bread from a clay oven.

Msemen and round loaves stacked in a lit bread stall in the Fes medina at nightAbout 3 hoursBread & the ferranKnead khobz, fold msemen and griddle harcha, then carry your loaves through the lanes to the neighbourhood wood-fired oven, the way Fes still bakes.See the classA sweets counter piled with chebakia and honey pastries in the Fes medinaAbout 3.5–4 hoursPastries & cookiesGazelle horns, chebakia, ghriba and almond briouats: the sweets Fassi families make for weddings, Eid and Ramadan, rolled and shaped by hand.See the classA spice seller among sacks of spices and herbs in his Fes medina shopAbout 2–2.5 hoursMint tea & spicesLearn the Moroccan mint tea ritual properly, then blend your own ras el hanout and chermoula after a visit to a spice stall in the Fes medina.See the classA fruit seller arranging oranges and pomegranates on Talaa KebiraAbout 2.5–3 hoursFamily & kidsA shorter, hands-on class built for children: kneading msemen, rolling kefta, shaping ghriba cookies and pouring mint tea from a height, with lunch at the end.See the classA clay tagine and bowls of salads, couscous and vegetables laid out on a garden table at a farm cooking class near FesAbout 6–7 hours including the driveCountryside farm dayLeave the medina for olive groves and farmland outside Fes: pick vegetables, bake bread in a clay oven and cook a country tagine over charcoal with a rural family.See the class

What Fassi cooking is

Ask Moroccans where the most refined cooking comes from and many say Fes. It is a city's home cooking: patient, layered with spice rather than heat, and fond of sweetness against meat.

Sweet with savoury

The signature of Fes is meat cooked with fruit, honey and warm spice: pastilla dusted with sugar and cinnamon, lamb with prunes and almonds, mrouzia glazed with honey and raisins, couscous crowned with tfaya of caramelised onion and raisins.

Many kitchens, one city

Fes was founded as a royal city and filled up with people from elsewhere: families from Córdoba and Kairouan in the early centuries, later waves from al-Andalus, and a Jewish community in the Mellah. Their cooking, and the Amazigh cooking of the mountains around the city, merged into what Moroccans call Fassi food.

Patience and preservation

Fassi cooks lean on things that take time: lemons preserved in salt, smen (aged, salted butter), khlii (spiced dried beef preserved in its fat) and the warqa pastry sheets for pastilla, made one by one on a hot pan.

A shared table

Bread is baked at the neighbourhood ferran, couscous is the Friday meal, harira breaks the Ramadan fast, and sweets like chebakia and kaab el ghazal mark every celebration. A class here is as much about those rhythms as about recipes.

Before you knock

The questions people ask us most before they plan a trip.

Which Fes cooking class should I book?
If it's your only class, choose the riad class with a market visit: you shop the souks and cook a full lunch. Keen cooks who already know tagine should take the Fassi specialties class for pastilla and mrouzia. For children, the family class keeps every step hands-on and short.
Are the cooking classes private?
Every class is offered both ways: private, for just your party, with your own menu and start time; or small group, shared with a few other travellers on a set menu. Ask for a quote and we'll price both.
How much does a cooking class in Fes cost?
We don't publish fixed prices because each class is built around your group size, menu, diet, date and whether you want it private. Send your details through the quote form and you'll get a written quote.
Can cooking classes in Fes cater for vegetarians and vegans?
Yes. Moroccan home cooking has a deep plant-based repertoire (cooked salads, vegetable tagines, bissara, lentils, seven-vegetable couscous) and we have a dedicated vegetarian and vegan class. Most other classes can also be run fully vegetarian if we know before the market shop.
Is a cooking class or a food tour better in Fes?
They do different things. A food tour is a few hours grazing street food across the medina; a cooking class teaches you to make the dishes and ends with a sit-down meal. Many guests do the food tour on day one and a class later in the trip.
What should I bring to a cooking class?
Comfortable shoes for the medina, clothes you don't mind getting a little flour on, and an appetite. Aprons, ingredients and recipes are provided.

Before you book

The food tour many guests pair with a class, and the reading behind the dishes.

Food stalls along a covered lane of the Fes medina, olives and sweets in glass countersTour · Half dayThe Fes food tourA guided tasting walk through the stalls of Fes el-Bali.See how it runsA tagine being assembled with layers of carrot, potato, green beans and parsley on a home stoveGuideMoroccan cooking classes: what to expectHow a class runs, what you cook and what to bring.Read the guideHarira with fried snacks and small dishes on a turquoise zellige table, an iftar spreadGuideMoroccan food and drinkThe dishes, the breads, the sweets and the tea.Read the guideA meat tagine topped with prunes, almonds and sesame on a zellige table, flatbread beside itJournalMoroccan food and the tagineThe pot, the slow cooking and the dishes made in it.Read itMint tea poured from a silver teapot into glasses packed with fresh mint, TangierJournalThe mint tea ritualHow tea is poured, and why it is poured from a height.Read it

Tell us what you want to cook. We'll set the table.

  1. Tell us what drew you in. Your dates, who is travelling and what you want to see.
  2. A person reads it. We write a day-by-day plan for your group, private or small-group.
  3. You change anything. Then we confirm the guides, drivers and riads.
Plan my classAsk a question first
Plan this with us