Marrakech, MA

A decades-old, entirely women-run institution in Gueliz that locals trust for classic Moroccan cooking, from slow-cooked lamb tagine with caramelized onions to a celebrated couscous. The benchmark for traditional Marrakchi food without the medina theatrics.

A social-enterprise restaurant in Gueliz where disadvantaged women train as cooks, serving heartfelt home-style Moroccan dishes you rarely find on menus, like fish tagine and Friday couscous. The best home-cooked meal in the city, with a cause behind it.

A simple, locally loved fish restaurant in Gueliz with a no-fuss formula: fresh seafood, fried or grilled, at honest prices that draw a steady Marrakchi crowd. A welcome break from tagine in a landlocked city.

A contemporary Moroccan rooftop in the medina balancing tradition with modern twists, its spoon-tender lamb tagine and creative plates served at fair prices with a terrace view. A reliable upscale-feeling medina dinner without the splurge.

A family-run medina institution that has perfected mechoui, whole lamb slow-roasted in underground pit ovens until it falls apart, sold by weight with bread and cumin. A primal, genuinely Marrakchi meal hidden off the square.

A calm, ochre-walled cafe on the spice square of Rahba Kedima with a rooftop terrace over the market stalls, good for mint tea, salads, and light Moroccan plates. The classic medina pause that started the area's cafe wave.

The pioneering modern-Moroccan rooftop that helped remake medina dining, plating lighter, contemporary takes on local ingredients across several terrace levels above the spice square. Stylish, deservedly popular, and best at golden hour.

A stylish Gueliz spot popular with younger Marrakchis for Asian-leaning sharing plates, sushi, and cocktails, a genuine change of pace from the city's Moroccan default. Buzzy, modern, and where locals go when they want something different.

A polished Lebanese restaurant on a medina street near the palaces, plating fresh mezze, grills, and properly made hummus and fattoush. The reliable Levantine option when the table wants meze instead of another tagine.

A long-running Italian restaurant in a lush Gueliz villa with a candlelit garden, serving handmade pasta and classics to a loyal expat-and-local crowd. The romantic, dependable non-Moroccan dinner in the new town.

A pioneering vegetarian and vegan cafe tucked down a medina alley, with a leafy rooftop and a daily-changing menu of plant-based Moroccan and international dishes. A genuine, calm meat-free haven in a very carnivorous city.

A cultural cafe in the Kasbah spread over a tall townhouse, known as much for its camel burger and all-day breakfasts as for the storytelling nights and music sessions it hosts. A relaxed, creative hangout rather than a quick bite.

A beloved Gueliz patisserie pairing French-style pastries and cakes with Moroccan almond sweets, drawing a steady local crowd for breakfast and afternoon treats. The go-to sugar fix in the new town.

A lavish coffee house inside the restored Dar el Bacha palace, pouring scores of single-origin coffees by white-gloved staff amid mosaics and a fountain courtyard. The most opulent cup of coffee in the city, as much spectacle as cafe.

A well-established Gueliz spot on Avenue Mohammed V for Moroccan-meets-Mediterranean sharing plates like kefta, labneh, and bright salads. A modern, relaxed new-town dinner with a loyal following.

The historic palm grove on the city's northern edge, thousands of date palms threaded with sandy tracks where you can walk, ride a camel, or quad among the oasis greenery. The easiest taste of desert-edge landscape without leaving the city.

A vast, centuries-old royal orchard south of the medina, hundreds of hectares of olive, orange, and pomegranate trees fed by old irrigation basins, with long straight walking avenues. A flat, shaded, wonderfully un-touristed green walk.

A restored historic garden between the medina and Gueliz, the Arsat Moulay Abdeslam, with shaded paths, fountains, and old olive and citrus trees. A small, central, free green lung for an easy stroll between the two halves of the city.

A 12th-century olive grove west of the center built around a huge reflecting basin and a photogenic green-roofed pavilion, with the snow-capped Atlas behind on a clear day. A flat, peaceful walk and the city's signature mountain-and-water view.

A striking terracotta-brick museum beside Jardin Majorelle devoted to the designer who fell for Marrakech, rotating selections from his couture archive in a beautifully lit gallery. A polished, compact stop that even non-fashion people tend to enjoy.

A restored early-20th-century pasha's palace in the medina, the Museum of Confluences, set around a stunning zellij-and-fountain courtyard with rotating cultural exhibitions. Worth it for the architecture alone, with one of the city's loveliest courtyards.

A photography museum in a restored medina riad near Ben Youssef, showing vintage prints of Morocco from the 1870s onward across three floors topped by a rooftop cafe. A quiet, illuminating stop with one of the best medina rooftop views.

A museum of Moroccan art and crafts inside the restored Dar Menebhi palace, centered on a grand courtyard crowned by an enormous ornate brass chandelier. The setting outshines the rotating collection, and that is reason enough.

A traditional steam-and-scrub bath, a centuries-old Moroccan ritual of black soap, exfoliating gloves, and rinsing in hot, tiled rooms, offered everywhere from local public hammams to plush medina spas. The classic, restorative end to a dusty day in the souks.

A hands-on half-day learning to make tagine, salads, and bread from local cooks, often starting with a guided shop through the souks for ingredients. A delicious, sociable way to take a piece of Marrakech home.

A theatrical dinner show on the city's edge with a Moroccan feast under tents followed by a 'fantasia', galloping horsemen firing muskets, acrobats, and folk performers. Unabashedly touristy spectacle, but a genuine crowd-pleaser with kids.

A dawn balloon flight over the plains and palm groves outside the city, drifting at sunrise with the snow-capped Atlas filling the horizon. The splurge experience that reframes Marrakech from above, usually with a Berber breakfast after landing.

A long-running dinner-and-cabaret spot in Hivernage where Moroccan dishes give way to belly dancers descending a grand staircase and a DJ as the night goes on. The city's classic glitzy night out, more about the show and the scene than the food.

The vast UNESCO-listed square at the heart of the medina, a daytime market of juice carts and snake charmers that erupts after dark into a smoke-wreathed carnival of food stalls, musicians, and storytellers. The chaotic, unforgettable center of Marrakech life.

The city's largest mosque and its great navigational landmark, its 12th-century minaret rising above the medina and visible from all over town. Non-Muslims cannot enter, but the floodlit tower and the rose gardens around it are the classic Marrakech sight.

A late-19th-century palace built to be the grandest of its age, where a decade of the city's finest craftsmen produced dazzling carved cedar ceilings, zellij tilework, and tranquil courtyards. The single best place to grasp Moroccan decorative artistry.

The cobalt-blue villa and exotic garden created by painter Jacques Majorelle and later saved by Yves Saint Laurent, a dense, cooling oasis of bamboo, cacti, and lily ponds. Small but ravishing, and one of the most photographed spots in Morocco.

A royal necropolis sealed up for centuries and only rediscovered in 1917, its finest chamber a jewel-box of carved cedar, gilded muqarnas, and Carrara-marble columns over the Saadian sultans' graves. A small, exquisite hidden corner of the Kasbah.

A restored 16th-century Quranic college, once the largest in North Africa, built around a serene reflecting-pool courtyard sheathed in zellij, carved stucco, and cedar. Its meticulous restoration makes it the medina's most photogenic interior.

The ruined shell of a once-fabulous 16th-century palace, stripped of its gold and onyx long ago but still grand in its vast sunken gardens and high ramparts where storks now nest. The romance is in the scale and the decay.

The labyrinth of covered lanes spreading north from Jemaa el-Fnaa, organized by craft into quarters for leather, metalwork, carpets, spices, and dyed textiles. Getting lost here is the point, and the bargaining is half the experience.

A restored riad-garden complex hidden deep in the medina, two walled gardens, one Islamic and one exotic, around old pavilions and a working hydraulic water system. A serene, fragrant pause a few steps off the busiest souk lanes.

The old Jewish quarter beside the palaces, a denser warren of tall houses, a spice-and-jewelry market, and the restored Lazama synagogue. A quieter, less-touristed slice of the medina with its own distinct history and balconied architecture.

The historic royal district in the south of the medina, gathered around the Kasbah Mosque and its distinctive minaret, holding the Saadian Tombs and El Badi within its walls. The grander, more monumental quarter, anchored by the ornate Bab Agnaou gate.