Fassi food: what to eat in Fes after your first tagine

The word tagine names both the pot and the dish cooked in it. The conical lid traps steam and returns it as condensation to the base — a slow braise that turns humbler cuts extraordinarily tender. The classic Fassi pairings are lamb with prunes and almonds (mrouzia), chicken with preserved lemon and olives, and kefta (spiced minced beef) with eggs. Each carries its own spice profile; the lemon chicken is the gentlest and the most widely loved by visitors.

The best tagines are not always in restaurants. Ask your guide to lead you to a medina fondouk where the pots have sat on low heat since morning, or arrange through us a cooking experience in a Fassi home.

If the tagine is the everyday dish, pastilla (bastila) is the Fassi banquet's crown — and Fes is its birthplace. Paper-thin warqa pastry encases a filling of slowly braised pigeon (or chicken), egg, saffron and fresh coriander, then the whole parcel is dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. Sweet and savoury together in a flaky shell. Some of the best versions are still made here, in the old Fassi households and the riads that carry the tradition forward; a seafood pastilla has since emerged on the coast at Essaouira and is worth seeking out too.

Couscous is the dish Fassi families gather around on Friday after the midday prayer. In its home culture it is not a restaurant dish at all — it is domestic, maternal and communal. The semolina is steamed three times over a vegetable broth, piled into a dome and dressed with slow-cooked vegetables (turnip, courgette, carrot, cabbage) and a choice of lamb, chicken or vegetables alone. Restaurants serve it on Fridays and Saturdays; if you are in Fes on those days, order it.

Fes el-Bali is its own food theatre — quieter and more intricate than the grand squares elsewhere, threaded through nine thousand lanes. Near Rcif and along Talaa Kebira the stalls work in the morning and again after the late-afternoon prayer: bissara (thick fava bean soup with cumin and a slick of olive oil) eaten standing for breakfast, sfenj doughnuts fried to order, maakouda potato cakes folded into bread, and snail broth (babbouche) ladled into a cup, the snails teased out with a pin — odd, warming and very cheap.

For something sweet, the Fassi pastry trade is centuries deep — almond briouats, sellou, and the honeyed chebakia that appears in Ramadan. On the coast at Essaouira, sardines split and grilled over charcoal at the port are the defining bite; it makes a fine contrast on a longer Moroccan circuit out from Fes.

Fassi cooking is generous to non-meat eaters, though the idea of veganism is not widely understood and will need explaining. The salad starters — zaalouk (smoked aubergine and tomato), taktouka (roasted pepper and tomato), carrot with cumin, beetroot with chermoula — are all plant-based and arrive automatically at a traditional table. A plain vegetable tagine with olives and preserved lemon is available everywhere. Vegans should ask specifically about smen (aged butter), used in couscous and some breads, and note that the starters can contain egg.

A half-day cooking class is one of the best single experiences Fes offers. The format we prefer opens with a guided walk through the medina souks to source ingredients — watching a spice merchant in the Attarine blend ras el hanout by hand is worth the morning on its own — then a session in a Fassi home or riad kitchen learning three dishes, pastilla often among them. You eat what you make, with mint tea and the quiet pride of having done it. We include this in our cultural tours and can arrange it as a standalone for guests staying independently.

Morocco is a Muslim country; alcohol is served in licensed restaurants and hotels but not universally. The default drink is atay — mint tea poured from a height to raise a froth, three glasses in succession (the first for life, the second for love, the third for death, in the local saying). In Fes, the welcome tea in a riad courtyard is practically a rite of arrival. Fresh orange juice, almond milk and avocado smoothies are popular alternatives. Tap water is treated but variable; we advise bottled water throughout.