Ask ten people in Ouarzazate where the best tagine is and you will get ten addresses, several of them belonging to a cousin. The more useful question is a different one: which tagine should you order here, and how can you tell, before it reaches the table, whether the kitchen is going to cook it properly?
The history of the dish and of the clay pot is in Tagine: the dish, the pot and the patience. This piece is about the choice you make tonight.
Which tagine to order in this region
The south does not eat like Fez or Marrakech. Sauces are shorter, spices quieter, and vegetables count for as much as the meat. A few versions are worth looking for:
- Chicken with preserved lemon and olives. The classic, and a good test of a kitchen: the lemon should perfume the sauce without turning it bitter.
- Beef with vegetables. Carrots, potatoes, courgettes and peas stacked around the meat in a cone. Slow and honest.
- Kefta with egg. Small balls of seasoned minced meat in tomato sauce, eggs cracked on top at the end. The one children and tired drivers tend to choose.
- Vegetable tagine. In a valley where the gardens are watered from the wadi, this is not a fallback. When the vegetables were picked that morning, it is often the best plate on the table.
Sweet and savoury tagines with prunes, almonds and sesame also exist here, but they belong more to celebrations than to an ordinary evening.
How to judge a restaurant's tagine before you order
You cannot taste it in advance, but you can read the signs.
They ask you to order ahead. A tagine needs well over an hour on gentle heat. A kitchen that wants your choice when you book is a kitchen that is going to cook it for you. One that promises a tagine in fifteen minutes is warming one up.
The menu is short. Five tagines done properly are worth more than twenty listed.
It arrives covered. The cone is lifted at the table and the steam escapes all at once. The sauce should be thick and glossy, not a pool of oil.
Nobody brings you a knife for the meat. It should come away with a spoon or a piece of bread.
There are more of these signs in our guide to recognising an authentic Moroccan restaurant in Ouarzazate.
Where to find a good one
In the centre, the restaurants around Avenue Mohammed V serve tagine all day. Choose the ones with a short menu and ask what was cooked today. In the villages around town, guesthouses and small restaurants that work by reservation usually do it better, because they cook for a known number of people.
We should say plainly that this journal is written by La Table du Berbère, and that the tagine is our house dish. At our table in Tifoultoute the Berber tagine comes in five versions: chicken with vegetables, lemon chicken, beef with vegetables, kefta with egg, and vegetarian. It is cooked in clay, to order. The menu takes about an hour and a half to prepare once ordered, which is why we ask you to choose when you book your table. The full carte is online.
What to eat around it
A tagine is a main course, not a whole meal. When you compose a menu, the balance between the three courses matters:
- With a rich tagine, beef or kefta, start light: a Moroccan salad or the vegetable soup.
- With a vegetable tagine, crisp briouates or nems make a better contrast.
- Finish with orange and cinnamon. After a clay cooked sauce, it is exactly what you want.
Mint tea does the rest. If you are curious about starters, our page on Moroccan salads explains the cooked and raw ones you will meet in the region.
Eating it the local way
Bread is the cutlery. Tear off a piece with your right hand, use it to pinch the meat or vegetables on the side of the dish nearest you, and leave the centre for last. Nobody minds a fork, but try it once with bread: the sauce is made for it.
Frequently asked questions
Is tagine spicy? Rarely. Southern tagines are seasoned with ginger, turmeric, saffron, cumin and pepper rather than chilli. Anything hot usually comes on the side.
Is there a good vegetarian tagine? Almost everywhere, and in this valley it is often excellent. Our vegetarian guide to Ouarzazate has practical advice for ordering.
How long does a tagine take? Between one and two hours of cooking. Order ahead, or arrive hungry and patient.
For meal times, bread, tea and the rest, start with our Ouarzazate food guide.
