Marrakech Food Tour: Eat Like A Local In Morocco

Marrakech is one of our all-time favourite cities to visit and a genuine assault on the senses. If you’re just visiting Marrakech, or kicking off your Morocco travels, a Marrakech food tour is a great orientation to Moroccan food.

“Who wants to try sheep’s head?” Youssef has a sparkle in his eye. “It’s only half a head, not too much.”

Four of us are sitting at a small, chipped table on the top floor of a narrow building not far from Marrakech’s bustling main square, Djemaa el-Fna. It’s twilight and smoke is beginning to cloud over the vast precinct as dozens of barbecues fire up in the makeshift open-air food stalls, ready to serve up tagine, spicy sausage and steaming brochettes. My stomach is grumbling.

Still, I surprise myself when I’m the first to opt in for the sheep’s head. John looks slightly aghast. But it’s out now. Let’s do this.

We’ve joined Moroccan Food Adventures for a three-hour guided Moroccan eating experience in Marrakech old town. Youssef, the owner and our guide tonight, is Marakshi by birth. His wife and co-owner, Amanda, is from the midwest US.

Returning to the Red City after nearly a decade abroad, the couple created the food tours in order to search out and share with visitors the city’s distinctive food culture and its real local fare, the kind they say Youssef’s discerning Moroccan mum would approve of.

Sheep’s head is our first – optional – taste test tonight, and where better to try it than in Mechoui Alley, a tiny laneway fully dedicated to the industry of slow roasting whole sheep in deep, pit ovens. Our forlorn looking half-head arrives and we pick at it gingerly before offering it to Youssef’s delighted assistant.

We’re less reserved however with the rest of the mechoui banquet: traditional khobz bread, chunks of melt-in-the-mouth slow roasted lamb, and tangia, a delicious lamb stew cooked in a sealed, urn-shaped terracotta pot.

Youssef was raised in the ancient medina of Marrakech and he knows the snaking alleys of the souqs like the back of his hand. Over the next couple of hours, he takes us on a winding journey through markets teeming with locals, where we sample Atlas-grown olives, watch expert hands turn fresh msemen (square shaped pancakes similar to gozleme), and sip harira soup, a hearty lentil and chickpea dish traditionally eaten to break the fast during Ramadan.

We also meet the friendly characters at a community khobz bakery, and an underground furnace, where the souq’s garbage is manually fed into a constant fire to heat the hammams above.

Youssef takes us to one of his old hangouts, a press of plastic chairs and tables packed with folks munching on the popular Marrakech street food hout quari: sardine kefta sandwiches. As sardines are about as appealing to me as licking John’s football socks after a game, I hesitate longer on this one than the sheep’s head. It’s a winner though, loaded with flavour but surprisingly subtle, a tasty fusion of fried sardine meatballs with red onion, green olives, fresh herbs and spicy sauce.

I’m definitely feeling the pinch of my jeans when we next crowd into a tiny restaurant with three beaming Marakshi mamas. As a steaming mountain of couscous piled high with vegies and caramelised onion arrives, we start laughing. Youssef explains it’s a tactical decision eating couscous later in the tour or we’d all be stuffed from the get go. In honour of tactics, we set out as a team to conquer the mountain.

Our last major stop is a patisserie, where we plead for mercy as Youssef brings out creamy avocado and almond smoothies and plates of Moroccan cookies. Somehow we polish them off too.

More than three hours after setting out, we waddle back out into the Djemaa el-Fna, still heaving with people and thumping to the beat of gnaoua drums. The hubbub is jarring after our absorbing immersion in the food culture and stories of the Red City’s souqs. It’s been a rich and fulfilling experience, as much a unique insight into one Marakshi’s life growing up in the medina, as a fit-to-burst feast of the senses for us.

We won’t need breakfast tomorrow. And I can respectfully take sheep’s head off my list of foods to try.

Good to know

Moroccan Food Adventures runs 3.5 hour evening walking tours every day. Tours are in English and are bookable online – book ahead, tours fill up quick.

Cost: $70 USD including all food and drinks (such as water, tea) and guide.

Tip: Try and do the tour when you first arrive in Marrakech so you can go back and try more of that deliciousness in the following days (like a paper cone of olives or a mechoui sandwich with cumin-salt for lunch – yum!). Come really hungry and wear loose fitting pants!

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