Tangier

Dining in Tangier — The Essential Guide

The Gateway City at Table

Tangier occupies one of the most geographically dramatic positions of any city in the world: on the Strait of Gibraltar, 14 kilometres from the Spanish coast, at the point where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet and where Africa and Europe have been looking at each other across the water since before either civilisation had a name. The city’s dining scene reflects this gateway identity: the French cooking of the colonial Protectorate alongside the Moroccan culinary tradition that predates it, the Spanish influence that the proximity of Andalucía naturally generates, and the international cosmopolitanism of a city that was once governed by nine nations simultaneously.

Tangier’s literary reputation — the city of Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, and the international avant-garde of the 20th century — has shaped its self-image as a city of cultural encounter and creative mixing. The best restaurants in the medina and on the bay reflect this: El Morocco Club’s French-Moroccan fusion, Nora Larini’s Moroccan-Mediterranean-Asian mixing, and Le Saveur du Poisson’s daily catch simplicity all represent different expressions of what it means to cook in the gateway between two worlds.

The Strait of Gibraltar Catch

The Strait of Gibraltar is one of the most productive fishing grounds in the Mediterranean — the point where the cold Atlantic water floods into the warmer sea, creating the upwelling conditions that support extraordinary fish populations. The bluefin tuna that passes through in both directions during the annual migration, the sea bass and dorade of the coastal waters, and the prawns of the Bay of Tangier all arrive in the city’s fish markets daily and constitute the raw material for restaurants from the most formal (El Morocco Club) to the most direct (Le Saveur du Poisson).