Essaouira Restaurants

There is another seafood restaurant on the port, ''chez Sam''. We have not been able neither to check it, for the same reason ! But if we have the opportunity to go back soon to Essaouira, we will certainly try it.

The front entrance into "le Coquillage" is easy to recognize. It is a few meters away from the fishing boats. The seafood won't wait ! We had only one meal in Essaouira and could not taste more than one restaurant ! Too bad !

When we visited the shipbuilding yard, we spotted "le Coquillage" (the shell), a seafood restaurant. It is very close to shipbuilding and to the harbor where the fishing boats arrive. They must have fresh seafood too!

In a very pleasant surrounding, "le Patios" serves an excellent food. An ancient house has been very well arranged into a restaurant. Light curtains divide the dining room so that each table has some privacy but you can anyway see the whole dining room.

I highly recommend the shark tajine, but do not wait too much to order. When we were in "le Patio", I had the last one : we advised our neighbors at the next table to have the same, but there was none remaining !

Located inside the beautiful blue-coloured medina, in one of the small white houses, is this incredibly trendy and though inexpensive restaurant. Owned by Hasan, a young moroccan with an European girlfriend, it has moroccan decoration in the chill-out style, candlelights and fantastic music and environment. Colour ranges between black, red and orange, a magic small world, with very good moroccan cuisine, cooked with elegance and served with class by Hasan himself, who doesn't miss the opportuinty to chat with his clients or sip a glass of moroccan wine with them. Ideal for young independent travellers or trendy and open-minded families.

Nice Story: on our first night in Essaouira, we were lost and without hostel, and Hasam took us with him to his house to spend the night, 5 minutes after we entered his restaurant to ask for help.. we were 9 people on his couches and on the next day, of course, had dinner in his nice restaurant!

Favorite Dish: I only ate there once, but it was a very good "Veal Tagine" (stew)

We sat outside and watched the post-sunset crowd drift by. Quite large gaps between courses, but we weren't in a hurry, and the cats who soon found us kept us entertained. We had a very tasty meal of soup, chicken tagine, chicken couscous, dessert, and bottled water for 100dh, about $15.00 Canadian.

When I was a travel agent, I used to tell my clients that Rule Number One is, always ask the price first. Good advice.

At the harbour in Essaouira, we'd patrolled the stalls, resisting the come-hither tactics of the vendors until we'd seen them all, and then we came back to Stall #1. It was high noon and I eyed the fish suspiciously, wondering how long it had been out there. I decided that to make sure our lunch was fresh, we should choose something that was alive -- lobster and crab. I boldly marched up to the stall and ordered one of each, and the vendor split the little lobster and prepared to cook it. We sat down, looking forward to this meal which we'd heard would be really good and really cheap (we'd heard around 70-80 dh for two).

At the stalls, payment is made upon ordering, and the man came to our table and asked for 380 dh. We were stunned, and I figured that (as I kept doing), I mislaid a zero somewhere). But that was the amount. He then showed us a price list: this fish, that fish...10 dh, 20 dh; crab...80 dh; lobster...300 dh. Why I ever thought it would all be the same price is still beyond me, except that there were no prices posted anywhere, I guess. I tried, with a pathetically thin application of charm, to change my order but he pointed out quite reasonably that the lobster was now dead and being cooked.

He did come down to 300dh, about $45.00 Canadian, which is way more than we've spent for lunch in recent memory. But being our usual fairly resilient selves, we rationalized that we'd make this our main meal of the day, and what the hell. So we perked up and waited for our meal.

Well... it was overcooked, stringy, and I think we each got about 1.5 good bites. The rest was sucking on various tendons and cartilege and imagining lobster. The crab was no better, even the claws.

By the end of the meal we did manage to laugh at it, or at least smile, but it really brought that ol' Rule Number One home.