Where to eat in Fez: local dishes, markets and neighborhoods

Fes has three eating zones and they behave differently. The medina (Fes el-Bali) is where the cooking is; the Ville Nouvelle is where the easy, licensed, late-opening places are; and your riad is the fallback when you are tired or arriving late.

Pick by what you want from the meal, not by reviews. A busy grill with plastic stools gives you the best food-per-dirham in the city. A medina restaurant with a courtyard gives you the setting and a menu in English. A riad dinner gives you convenience and no walk home in the dark.

Fes cooking is Andalusian in origin: sweet with savoury, almonds and cinnamon against slow-cooked meat. Pastilla is the dish to try first, a flaky pastry pie of pigeon or chicken with almonds, cinnamon and sugar, now often made with seafood too. Khlii is dried, preserved beef cooked with fat and spices, used in eggs and sandwiches. Bissara, a split fava bean soup with olive oil and cumin, is a winter breakfast staple and one of the cheapest things you can eat in the city.

Harira, the tomato, lentil and chickpea soup, turns up everywhere and is often the first thing a small place will put in front of you. Tagines and couscous are nationwide dishes rather than Fes specialities, but you will eat them here: couscous traditionally on Friday lunch only, tagine any time. Kefta, grilled minced meat or cooked in tomato with eggs, is the reliable cheap main.

Where locals eat is mostly a question of time of day. Breakfast is a street or neighbourhood stand: bissara, msemen, baghrir with honey and butter, mint tea. Lunch is the main meal, taken at a grill or a small restaurant near the souks where workers eat. Dinner is lighter and later, often at home; in the medina, many small places close by early evening, so plan dinner at a riad, a hotel or in the Ville Nouvelle.

The food markets are worth a walk even if you do not cook. Produce, olives, preserved lemons, spices and dried fruit are sold in the covered souks and in the daily markets outside the walls. Buy bread from a neighbourhood bakery, where flat loaves come out of a communal oven. For a picnic, cheese, olives, bread and fruit cost very little.

Practical points. Bread is on the table with almost every meal and is eaten with the right hand from the shared dish, taking from the part in front of you. Do not throw bread away. Tea is offered constantly; accepting is polite. All meat is halal by default. Alcohol is rare in the medina and mostly found in licensed hotels and some Ville Nouvelle restaurants. Vegetarian food exists but stock is often meat-based, so ask.

Fes is one of the cheaper cities in Morocco to eat in, and the gap between a local place and a tourist-facing one is wide. The figures below are 2026 estimates for one person.