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Pâtisserie Adamo
Chocolate éclairs with élan and light custard pastries studded with berries: is that rumbling your stomach, or the sound of Parisian patisseries' thunder being stolen by this Marrakshi success? Thank the seven saints of Marrakesh that chef Bruno Maulion saw fit to leave his Paris patisserie business, relocate to Marrakesh and raise the Marrakshi bar for croissants to the heavens.
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Patisserie Al-Jawda
Care for a sweet, or perhaps 200 different ones? Hakima Alami can set you up with sweet and savoury delicacies featuring figs, orange-flower water, desert honey and other local, seasonal ingredients. Around the corner at 84 Ave Mohammed V, Hakima's savvy son has set up a tea salon featuring his mother's treats plus additional savoury items such as briouats (stuffed pastry 'cigars') and khlii, the seasoned dried Berber beef that's a very acquired taste.
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Plats Haj Boujemaa
While daredevil carnivores gnaw on dubious Djemaa grills atop rickety stools, local foodie connoisseurs calmly enjoy their scrumptious sheep's brain under sidewalk umbrellas at Haj Boujemaa. Check out the fresh meat at the refrigerated counter, and just point at whatever parts strike your fancy - you can trust the Haj to cook it to perfection. The chips are fantastic.
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Restaurant Foucauld
This stucco-bedecked, dimly lit restaurant has seen many a Moroccan wedding in its day - which was at least 30 years ago, judging from copper relief landscapes from the 1970s and Bureau of Tourism posters from the French Protectorate. But this place is definitely set for a comeback with succulent lamb with figs and sesame, fresh, crusty bread, and tangy harira (soup), all for around DH100 .
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Restaurant Place des Ferblantiers
For a quick, tasty tagine served bubbling hot right off the burner, look no more at touristy palace restaurants with plodding service. Plop down on a plastic chair in the courtyard, and have whatever's freshest that day - the meat and produce come from the Mellah Market across the street, and you can see the cook whipping up tagines right in front of you.
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Ryad Jana
Finally, a family-run riad restaurant that serves a la carte lunches at realistic prices, with generous helpings of Moroccan hospitality. Enjoy your lamb tagine with prunes and almonds in the restful garden for only slightly more than you'd pay to dine on a skimpy version in the dusty Djemaa, and win huge accolades for trying even a few words of Moroccan Arabic.
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Samak al Bahria
Another local secret hiding in plain sight, this cheerful sidewalk joint serves top-notch Moroccan-style fresh fish and chips, with perfectly tender fried calamari just in from the coast, generous chunks of lemon, and salt and cumin to season. The sign is in Arabic, but you're in the right place when there's another fish restaurant next door, a swanky café at the corner and a mural of happy fish unaware of their dining destiny over the counter.
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Tangia
Can a standard chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemons really be worth almost three times what you'd pay in the Djemaa? Tangia will quell any such doubt with aromatic herbed olives, caramelised sauce with a lemony tang but no bitterness, and plump chicken very different from the anorexic variety served elsewhere - and at the next table over, the editors of American and French Vogue also seemed to approve.
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Tobsil
Dar Moha and Al Fassia have the edge for a la carte menus, but Tobsil is still top-notch for prix-fixe feasts in an intimate riad. As Gnaoua musicians play in the courtyard, up to 50 guests (no tour groups here) indulge in button-popping five-course menus with aperitifs and wine pairings for around DH550 .
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Villa Flore
Some come for meltingly tender lamb and duck; some for the relaxed black-and-white riad setting that's snazzy as a tuxedo and comfy as a djellaba ; and others, it must be admitted, for that blindingly handsome maitre d'. But the best draw is the Moroccan salad, three perfect circles of Moroccan meze that elevate lowly aubergines and peppers to major sensations with aromatic ras al-hanout spice.
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