Eating in Ouarzazate before heading to the desert

Look at a road map of southern Morocco and the routes to the Sahara fan out from Ouarzazate. Whatever you have booked for tomorrow night, a camp near Zagora, the dunes beyond M'Hamid or the sand of Merzouga, tonight you are very probably sleeping here. That makes tonight's dinner more important than it looks.

Why Ouarzazate is the stop

Most travellers arrive from Marrakech over the Tizi n'Tichka pass, which is already a full day once you add photo stops and Aït Ben Haddou. From Ouarzazate, two roads lead to the desert:

• South, on the N9, through Agdz and the palm groves of the Drâa valley to Zagora, roughly three hours of driving. M'Hamid lies further south, where the road ends and the tracks to Erg Chigaga begin.
• East, on the N10, through Skoura, the Dadès valley and Tinghir, then on to Erfoud and Rissani before Merzouga. That is a long day: usually five to six hours of driving or more, without counting stops at the gorges.

These times are approximate and depend on traffic, stops and how often you pull over for the view. They are long enough, either way, that it makes sense to sleep in Ouarzazate first and leave early.

The night before: eat well, eat early

The evening before a long drive is not the night for a heavy late meal. What works:

• Eat early. Dinner in Ouarzazate typically starts around 6 or 7 pm. Sitting down early means you are in bed at a reasonable hour.
• Choose slow food, not heavy food. A tagine cooked for a long time in clay is gentle on the stomach; so is a vegetable soup or a plate of salads.
• Drink water. The air is dry here, and tomorrow will be drier.
• Finish with tea. Mint tea after dinner is the local digestive, and it closes the evening without a second dessert.

If you are the driver, this matters even more.

Arriving late from Marrakech

The classic problem: you crossed the Tichka, stopped at Aït Ben Haddou, and you reach Ouarzazate at dusk, tired, wondering where to eat. Two habits save the evening.

First, book from the road. Many of the tables worth eating at here cook to order and work by reservation, so the passenger can send a message once you know your arrival time. Second, order ahead. At La Table du Berbère, the restaurant that writes this journal, the kitchen needs about an hour and a half once your menus are ordered; each guest chooses a starter, a main and a dessert from the carte. If you order from the road, by WhatsApp on +212 6 61 70 38 86 or through the booking form, dinner is ready when you arrive instead of an hour and a half after.

We are at Riad Chay in Tifoultoute, about ten minutes by car or taxi from the centre, about thirty five minutes from Aït Ben Haddou, with parking on site. Dinner is served from 6 to 10 pm, every evening. Our guide to dinner in Ouarzazate covers the other options too.

The morning after

Desert days start early. A few practical points:

• Ask your riad for an early breakfast the night before, so it is ready when you are.
• Fill up the tank in Ouarzazate, and buy water.
• Take something to eat on the road: fruit, a bag of dates, bread. Villages along both roads have cafés, but you may not want to stop when you would like to eat.

What you will eat further south

The desert roads have their own food. Along the Drâa, the palm groves produce dates that you will see sold by the roadside. Around Rissani and Merzouga, medfouna, a bread stuffed with meat or vegetables and sometimes called Berber pizza, is the local speciality. In desert camps, dinner is usually a tagine and soup, served late after the sunset on the dunes. It is good to have eaten properly the night before.

Coming back the other way

The road works in reverse too. After two or three nights in the desert, Ouarzazate is the first real town on the way back towards Marrakech, and a quiet dinner with vegetables from a garden can feel like a luxury. The same advice applies: book, order ahead, eat early if you plan to cross the Tichka the next morning.

For where to sleep, see our selection of riads in Ouarzazate; for how meals work here in general, the Ouarzazate food guide.

Cover photo: the Agdz palm grove below Jebel Kissane, Drâa valley, by Sylvestre BOCCO, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, resized.