Shopping in Morocco
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Spice Souq
For herbal Viagra, Berber lipstick, cures for baldness and exotic spices, the spice souq is the place to go. The jovial traders will try and draw you in with their more eccentric wares but the best buys are the aromatic spice blends for tajine, fish and chicken. You can also buy argan oil products here as well as the traditional amlou (about Dh40 per bottle). Nearby is the fish souq, an interesting place to wander even if you're not buying, and across Ave de l'Istiqlal, is the jewellery souq, a small area of jewellery shops with everything from heavy Berber beads to gaudy gold.
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Mohammed Ben El-Hair
Mt Everest is overrated; the most thrilling mountain to scale is the one of colourful Berber carpets in this tiny shop. Charming elderly proprietor Abu Mohammed ushers you in with a smile and mint tea, then waves towards the mountain with a single word of English: 'Democracy!' This is your invitation to clamber up, and start pulling down whatever carpets appeal to you. The prices are more than democratic; they're downright proletarian.
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Covered Market
This is the place in Meknès to get fresh produce, and is virtually a tourist attraction in itself, with its beautifully arranged pyramids of sugary sweet delicacies, dates and nuts, olives and preserved lemons in glistening piles. There’s also good-quality fruit and veg here, as well as meat – the faint-hearted may choose to avoid the automated chicken-plucking machines at the rear of the hall.
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Association Al Kawtar
Bring some baraka (good vibes) to your table with hand-embroidered table linens in spare, striking designs, all made at a nonprofit vocational training and daycare centre for disabled women and their children. Exquisitely edged pillow cases, hand towels and napkins make lovely feel-good gifts at perfectly reasonable fixed prices.
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Chez Les Nomades
A wide selection of antique and modern Berber carpets, reasonable prices, and a pleasant all-around carpet-shopping experience. Salah will explain (in perfect English) key differences in motifs, regions and quality with a variety of carpet types, then pull out carpets in whatever style and size appeals to you. Enjoy the tea and the education, without the usual hustle; here the selection speaks for itself.
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Souqs
While the Souqs of Meknès aren't as extensive as those of Fès or Marrakesh, the lack of hassle makes them a great place to potter around looking for souvenirs.
The easiest route into the souqs is through the arch to the left of the Dar Jamaï Museum on the north side of Place el-Hedim. Plunge in and head northwards, and you will quickly find yourself amid souvenir stalls and carpet shops.
As you walk, notice the qissariat (covered markets) off to either side. A couple of these are devoted to textiles and carpets, which are noisily auctioned off on Sunday mornings. Okchen Market, in the last qissaria on the left before you reach the T-junction with Rue Najjarine,…
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Rue des Consuls
Rue des Consuls is the best place to go if you want to shop at the stalls and choose crafts or gifts. Rabat was traditionally an artisan centre and a wide range of handicrafts are still practised here, so the choice and quality of goods is generally high. There are more offerings along Blvd Tariq al-Marsa towards the kasbah. You'll find everything in this area from jewellery, silks and pottery to zellij and carved wooden furniture.
Weaving was one of the most important traditional crafts in Rabat, and the more formal, Islamic style is still favoured. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings women descend from the villages to auction their carpets to local salesmen at the carpet…
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Art Naji
Ceramics seem to be everywhere in Fez – from the distinctive blue pottery to the intricate mosaics decorating fountains and riads. Art Naji is the place to go to buy the real deal. You can see the entire production process, from pot-throwing to the painstaking hand painting and laying out of zellij (tilework) – it’s a joy to behold. The potteries are about 500m east of Bab el-Ftouh, an easy trip in a petit taxi – look for the plumes of black smoke produced by olive pits, which burn at the right temperature for firing the clay. You can even commission a mosaic and arrange for it to be shipped home.
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Rue Sekkakine
For centuries, trading in gold or silver was forbidden to Muslims. This was because working precious metals to be sold at higher prices than their base value was considered usury, something forbidden under Islamic law. Jews faced no such prohibitions, though; when members of Fez's Jewish community moved into the Mellah in the 14th century they set up goldsmithing businesses in Rue Sekkakine.
Originally patronised by the palace, these days the shops are run by Muslims and cater to the locals' penchant for bling, specialising in jewellery made from garish yellow gold and sparkly stones of every description.
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Michi
Berber wabisabi is the design ethic at Michi, a creative partnership of Japanese Marrakesh resident Masayoshi Ishida and Marrakshi master craftsmen. Together they've created a look that combines natural materials, spare forms, and a whimsical sense of humour: woven raffia wing-tip shoes, a long-handled mug with a tiny orangewood spoon, flour-sack tote bags lined with basketry.
Even with your most winsome bargaining behaviour, Michi is more expensive than most souq shops: staff know you won't find this stuff elsewhere.
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Woodcarving Workshops
Essaouira is well known for its woodwork and you can visit the string of woodcarving workshops near the Skala de la Ville. The exquisite marquetry work on sale is made from local fragrant thuya wood, which is now an endangered species. Although the products are beautiful and sold at excellent prices, buying anything made from thuya threatens the last remaining stands of trees by increasing demand and therefore encouraging illegal logging. For a guilt-free conscience look for crafts made from other woods instead.
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Enfin
Trim, modern, hottie tunics for men in sumptuous materials and colours: deep red linen, ivory with black trim around the neck, black raw silk with a single off-centre grey stripe. Prices aren't cheap, but with the right bargaining banter you can get better deals here than in Enfin's factory outlet in Sidi Ghanem. The pink-and-black boutique and sharply dressed staff are incongruously glitzy for the raw, hardworking northern section of the souqs - but that's what makes Enfin so quintessentially Marrakesh.
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Ensemble Artisinal
Chefchaouen remains an artisan centre and, as such, an excellent place to shop - especially for woven rugs and blankets in bright primary colours. Many shops have looms in situ, so you can see the blankets being made. Previously silk was the material of choice: the mulberry trees in Plaza Uta el-Hammam are a legacy of these times. Most of the weaving nowadays is with wool, one of the area's biggest products.
It's worth stopping at the Ensemble Artisinal, if only for the sake of comparison.
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Bob Music
In case you hadn't noticed the Bob Marley posters and music throughout the souqs, this store makes the Marrakesh-Jamaica connection even more obvious. Gnaoua musicians are quick to point out the similarity in some rhythmic patterns and tunes, but you can put this ethonomusicology theory to the test yourself: pick up some Gnaoua castanets or a drum in this shop, and try your own Gnaoua rendition of 'Redemption Song'. No matter how badly you play it, you're bound to make their day at Bob Music.
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Parfumerie Medina
The knowledgeable owner Rachid Ouedrhiri will explain all about the perfumes, cosmetics and essential oils he stocks in his small stall in the Henna Souk, off Talaa Kebira and if you've always hankered after arabesques swirling of henna, here's the ideal place. The henna artist applies the mixture while you relax under the plane tree in the Henna Souk, off Talaa Kebira. She charges around DH30 for a finger-and-wrist design, or around DH200 for the full treatment of hands, forearms and feet.
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Sidi Ahmad Gabaz Stucco
Like any visitor with 20/20 vision, you may already be awestruck by the stucco detail up the street at the Ali ben Youssef Medersa - and this is your chance to take home a piece of the stucco action. Sidi Ahmad carves traditional geometric and floral designs right in his shop as well as sweet nothings in French, but with a day's turnaround he will very graciously carve your house number or whatever you like in English…just don't get any four-letter ideas, you naughty people.
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Linéaire B Cosmetics
Flowery descriptions in French effusively promise therapeutic effects from organic local ingredients and superconcentrated essential oils here. Basics such as savon noir (black soap) cost three times what they might in the Rahba Qedima, but the speciality items are worth the premium: rich argan oil balm scented with jasmine, after-sun lotion with Barbary figs and healing herbs, facial masks with white mud from Fez and geranium-flower essence.
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Tresors De Mille Et Une Nuit
An antique-hunting couple from Philadelphia wander through the unmarked door of this family riad for a quick snoop, and within minutes they're earnestly discussing shipping containers. Happens all the time to Said, whose family has been in the décor and antiques business for generations and has the stockpiled treasures to prove it: sand-worn Berber doors, rare Tuareg amulets, Deco lithographs, and a striking armoire inlaid with camel bone.
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Mohammed Rida Ben Zouine
Saville Row tailors would bite their thimbled thumbs with envy at Ben Zouine's custom hand-finished men's shirts, curve-skimming linen dresses with handmade silk closures, and snappy hooded jackets in 'Moroccan cashmere' (thick combed-cotton flannel). Sidi Mohammed keeps tabs on the latest men's' suit styles from Belgium, and can make you a slimming, bitter chocolate brown suit with a sneaky orange lining that Dries van Noten might admire.
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Chez Mahfoud
Tucked away behind the florists and butchers at the farmers market is this unexpected silver jewellery boutique. As at any Marrakshi jeweller, about half of Mahfoud's selection is imported, but the other half is worth a look: designs range from auspicious enamelled hands of Fatima to chic silver-inlaid wood earrings. Mahfoud doesn't bargain much, because he knows what you'd pay for that onyx cocktail ring on nearby Rue de la Liberté.
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Yahya
These fabulous filigree lamps take the play of light to the next level: flip the switch and beams of light wink and flirt all around the room. Pity those geometric chandeliers aren't more portable, but the lozenge-shaped wall sconces and egg-shaped table lanterns add instant intrigue to dark corners. Shipping can be arranged, but insurance from Morocco isn't yet available from most shipping services - better to buy a bag and carry it on.
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Masroure Abdillah
It usually takes decades to earn the title maâlem (master craftsperson), but young Masroure earns the title the hard way, pounding wool with savon noir (black soap) into felt. He then moulds it into seamless slippers, baubles for necklaces, and sturdy tote bags. Masroure's felt flowers come in snappy shades of natural brown, bright orange and splashy hot pink, and make groovy brooches, hatpins and everlasting bouquets.
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Abdelatif Instruments
Musicians make pilgrimages to the lute-maker's souq to watch beautiful music in the making, and here you can glimpse maâlem (master craftsman) Sidi Abdelatif carving lutes, tambourines, ginbris (two-stringed banjos), and ribabs (single-stringed fiddles). Since you're buying straight from the artisan himself, you can customize yours and get a better deal, too - music to every starving musician's ears.
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Créazen
CréaZen's got your back stylishly covered with modern linen tunics with geometric embroidery and djellaba-inspired hooded silk shirts. Snap up pants and kaftans off the rack or made to order in linen, silky combed cotton or 'Moroccan cashmere' (cotton fleece), and don't miss reasonably priced designer accessories: jewel-toned silk necklaces, sassy tasselled belts and lucky leather slippers embossed with a hand of Fatima.
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Market
The Market is excellent for fresh fish, meat, fruit and vegetables, and particularly throngs on Monday and Thursday, when people come from outside Chefchaouen to sell produce.
Several local specialities are worth checking out, particularly the fragrant mountain honey and soft ewe's cheese - both served up at breakfast. Add fresh dial makla (a type of bread) and you have all the ingredients for a heavenly picnic.
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