El Ali — Tunisian Traditional, Tunis
El Ali’s restaurant serves typical Tunisian dishes in a covered courtyard with a literary café on the upper level and a roof terrace offering superb views overlooking the historical medina. The three-tier format — restaurant below, literary café in the middle, roof terrace above — provides three entirely different experiences of the same building and the same culinary tradition.
The cooking covers the Tunisian classics with the honesty of a restaurant that serves the medina’s daily community: the brik (crispy pastry with egg and tuna), the chorba (spiced soup), the mechouia (grilled pepper and tomato salad), and the couscous that arrives on Fridays as the week’s most important meal. The roof terrace adds the visual dimension that the historical medina provides as a backdrop.
The mint tea served at El Ali, brewed in the traditional Tunisian manner with a ceremony of pouring from a height to develop the froth that the tradition demands, is among the best available in the city.
El Ali is the restaurant for Tunis visits that want the full vertical experience of the medina: from the street-level restaurant to the literary café where the intelligentsia has been gathering for decades to the roof terrace where the medina’s roofscape extends in every direction.
Best Occasion: Solo Dining
Three floors, a literary café, and a roof terrace above the Tunis medina: El Ali is one of the most culturally layered solo dining experiences available in North Africa — a restaurant that rewards the solitary explorer who wants to absorb the city through its food.
Best Occasion: First Date
A covered courtyard, a literary café, and a roof terrace with medina views: El Ali is a first-date venue that provides three escalating levels of cultural and culinary engagement.