Discovering...
The thousand-year-old medina of Fes hides some of Morocco's finest cooking behind unmarked doorways and inside communal ovens. Here is how to find it.
Leila Tazi· Fes, Culture & Cuisine Editor
Fes-based journalist with a food and crafts obsession, Leila spends her weeks between the tanneries, the Qarawiyyin quarter and the kitchens of the old city. She covers Fes, Meknes, food and Moroccan culture. Fes · 11+ years covering Morocco
Published 19 January 2025 Last updated 3 March 2026
Fes is the culinary capital of Morocco — and Moroccan chefs will tell you so, unprompted. The city's cuisine is older and more layered than Marrakech's, built on preserved lemons and aged smen and paper-thin pastry leaves that take years to master. Bastilla, Morocco's most celebrated savoury pie, was born here. So was the country's tradition of elaborate wedding feasts that run for three days.
The problem is the medina itself. Fes el-Bali is the largest living medieval city in the world — roughly 9,000 alleys, no cars, no addresses that make sense to an outsider. The best places to eat have no sign and no social media presence. You need either a very good local contact or a guide who has spent years earning one. This page tells you what to eat, where to look, and why a half-day guided food walk here pays off better than almost anywhere else in Morocco.
Fes cuisine has a distinct identity. These are the dishes that define it — and where to find them.
Palais de Fes area restaurants and riad dining rooms
A paper-thin pastry pie layered with pigeon (or chicken), egg, almonds, cinnamon and icing sugar. Salty-sweet and wholly Fassi — this is the dish Fes does better than anywhere else in Morocco. Order it as a starter and share.
60–120 MAD for a personal portion; 200–400 MAD for a full pie to share.
Street stalls and hole-in-the-wall eateries in Rcif and Bab Bou Jeloud areas
A thick tomato and lentil soup spiked with coriander, parsley and a whisper of smen (aged butter). In Fes the soup arrives with a side of chebakia (sesame honey pastry) rather than the dates you see in Marrakech. Under 10 MAD a bowl — the cheapest good meal in the medina.
5–10 MAD per bowl at street stalls.
Rcif market and Bab Guissa food alley
Whole slow-roasted lamb carved directly from the clay oven onto wax paper — no plate, no cutlery, eat with bread. Mechoui vendors set up from about noon and usually sell out by mid-afternoon. Arrive before 1 pm to be safe.
40–70 MAD per 200 g; bring your own bread or buy a round for 2 MAD from the nearest bakery.
Zaouit Sidi Lahcen Lyoussi neighbourhood and a handful of medina snack shops
Sometimes called Berber pizza: a thick, oven-baked flatbread stuffed with spiced minced beef, onion and egg. Not easy to find without local knowledge — a guide typically knows one or two reliable spots.
15–25 MAD per piece.
Talaa Kebira street vendors
Not a dish, but the most consistent sensory memory from a Fes medina walk. The stalls along Talaa Kebira squeeze to order and charge almost nothing. A glass of pomegranate juice here is an event.
5–10 MAD per glass.
The medina has 9,000 alleys. The best food is not on the tourist map.
A typical guided food walk covers three to four hours and eight to ten tasting stops. Here is how the morning usually unfolds.
Morning start
Most guided food walks enter the medina through the famous blue gate (Bab Bou Jeloud) and descend Talaa Kebira — the main artery. The street is loud and narrow, but vendors here sell fresh-pressed juice, msemen (griddle flatbread) and amlou (argan almond paste). You eat on your feet and keep moving.
Mid-morning
Rcif is the produce market where Fassi householders shop every morning. Herbs are sold in kilo bundles, smen (aged salted butter) sits in clay pots, and preserved lemons are stacked in towers. A guide can take you into one of the communal ferrane (bread ovens) where locals bring raw dough to be baked — the bread costs 2 MAD a round.
Lunch
The genuinely hidden restaurants of Fes medina are mostly unmarked dars (traditional houses) with a set lunch that changes daily. Expect bastilla, a tagine, couscous on Fridays, and a sweet pastry finish with mint tea. These places seat perhaps ten people and take walk-ins only when the guide knows the cook.
Afternoon
Near the Kairaouine mosque you find a string of sweet shops selling ghriba (crumbly almond biscuits), chebakia and sellou (a dense paste of toasted flour, almonds and honey eaten at Ramadan). This stretch also has the best mint tea — sit upstairs above the tanneries and sip while the smell of leather drifts up from below.
| Duration | 3–4 hours (half-day) |
| Street food grazing (solo) | From ~30–60 MAD (~$3–6 USD) indicative |
| Private guided food tour (with lunch) | From ~400–700 MAD (~$40–70 USD) per person indicative |
| Best group size | Private (1–4 people) for hidden-restaurant access |
| Start point | Bab Bou Jeloud (Blue Gate) — easily reached from any Fes riad |
| Best time to go | Morning (8–12 h): markets freshest, mechoui vendors active from noon |
| Dietary options | Plenty of vegetarian street food (harira, msemen, juices, pastries); meat dishes dominate restaurant menus |
Insider tip: bring small notes
Street vendors rarely have change for a 200 MAD note. Bring a handful of 5, 10 and 20 MAD coins and small notes before entering the medina — there is a Banque Populaire ATM just outside Bab Bou Jeloud. Also drink bottled water throughout; the medina fountains are decorative rather than potable.
In most Moroccan cities the "do I need a guide?" answer is nuanced. In Fes medina, especially for food, it leans strongly toward yes.
The practical conclusion: do an hour of solo juice-and-harira grazing on Talaa Kebira in the morning, then join a private guided tour for the lunch portion when the hidden tables open. You get both versions of the medina for the price of one.
Fes is best known for bastilla — the paper-thin pastry pie filled with pigeon, egg, almonds and cinnamon — which originated here. The city is also the home of pastilla au lait (a sweet milky cream version), Fassi-style couscous with seven vegetables, and harira with chebakia. The old medina has been a centre of Moroccan cuisine for a thousand years and the cooking reflects that depth. If you eat only one city's food in Morocco, most Moroccan chefs would tell you to eat in Fes.
Yes, but quality varies enormously. The best guided food tours in Fes medina cover six to eight tasting stops, include a sit-down lunch at an unlisted local restaurant, and last three to four hours. A good guide navigates the medina's roughly 9,000 alleys so you don't spend half the tour lost. Tours start from roughly 400–700 MAD (indicative) per person for a private arrangement. Group tours exist but tend to focus on the tourist-facing restaurants near Bab Bou Jeloud rather than the genuinely hidden spots.
Harira at 5–10 MAD a bowl is the best-value food in the medina — thick, warming and deeply flavoured. Mechoui (slow-roasted lamb carved from the oven at Rcif market) rivals any restaurant meal and costs a fraction of the price. Medfouna, the stuffed flatbread, is worth finding if you have a guide who knows a reliable spot. Fresh pomegranate juice from Talaa Kebira stalls is the most memorable 8-MAD drink in Morocco.
Street food grazing in the medina — juice, harira, a piece of medfouna, a bread from the ferrane — can cost under 50 MAD if you explore independently. A guided private food walk including a sit-down lunch typically runs from around 400–700 MAD per person (indicative), depending on how many stops are included and whether you pay separately for the restaurant lunch. Group tours cost less per head but cover fewer off-the-beaten-track stops. Private guides are worth the premium in Fes specifically, because the medina is genuinely impossible to navigate alone on a first visit.
Bastilla (also written bstilla or pastilla) is Morocco's most celebrated savoury pastry — a round, golden pie made from warqa (paper-thin pastry leaves), shredded pigeon or chicken, spiced egg, ground almonds, cinnamon and icing sugar. The sweet-savoury combination sounds improbable and tastes unlike anything else. In Fes you'll find it at riad restaurants near the Kairaouine mosque area and at smarter medina eateries. Prices range from 60–120 MAD for a personal portion. A guided food tour almost always includes at least a tasting.
Noticeably so, and Fassi cooks will tell you emphatically that it is superior. Fes cuisine leans on preserved ingredients — aged smen, preserved lemons, dried herbs — and has a more complex spice profile with less harshness. Bastilla is Fassi, not Marrakchi. The sweet-savoury layering is more pronounced in Fes, and couscous preparation tends to be lighter and more refined. Marrakech does excellent street food (particularly at Jemaa el-Fna), but for sit-down traditional cooking most food writers side with Fes.
For street food along Talaa Kebira and the Rcif market, yes — the stalls are visible, prices are marked (or easily negotiated) and you can graze happily for a morning. For hidden restaurants and private dars, no: they have no signage and the alleys around Kairaouine are a genuine labyrinth. Even Moroccan visitors from other cities use a local guide in Fes. A half-day guided food walk is one of the better-value experiences in the country; the medina rewards that investment more than almost any other Moroccan city.
Plan it with a local expert
Crafting extraordinary journeys through Morocco's timeless landscapes. 100% private journeys, handcrafted around you.
from $2,011Sahara Desert Luxury Expedition
from $2,054Essential Morocco: Imperial Cities Circuit
from $5,978Sahara to Sea: Morocco Complete