Moroccan cuisine is one of the world's great food cultures: slow-cooked tagines, couscous Fridays, the Atlantic seafood that defines Casablanca's tables, and the endless ritual of sweet mint tea.
Updated June 2026 · 2 min read · Culture
Dishes to seek out
Beyond the famous tagine and couscous, a few specialities reward the curious eater.
- Tagine — slow-cooked stews (lamb with prunes, chicken with preserved lemon and olives, kefta with egg).
- Couscous — traditionally the Friday family meal, steamed with seven vegetables.
- Pastilla — a sweet-savoury pie of pigeon or chicken under crisp warqa pastry and icing sugar; Casablanca's Habous-quarter pâtisseries are a fine place to try it.
- Harira — the hearty tomato-lentil soup that breaks the fast in Ramadan.
- Street food and seafood — grilled fish straight off the boats at Casablanca's Central Market (Marché Central), snail soup, msemen pancakes and fresh orange juice.
The tea ritual
Mint tea — green tea, fresh mint and plenty of sugar, poured from height — is the thread running through Moroccan hospitality. It's offered everywhere, from souk stalls to Berber homes, and accepting it graciously is part of the experience.
Eating well and safely
Morocco is largely Muslim, so pork is rare and alcohol is served mainly in hotels, licensed restaurants, the Corniche brasseries of Casablanca and tourist riads rather than everywhere. Tap water is best avoided for drinking — choose bottled. Busy stalls with high turnover are usually the safest (and tastiest) street food. Vegetarians do well: salads, vegetable tagines and couscous are everywhere.