Food Tours · Tour

Rahba Kedima's Spice Stalls, and Dinner in the Square

Three hours, and it ends where most Marrakech evenings end: at a table in Jemaa el-Fnaa, among the food stalls, with the smoke and the drummers and everything else going on around you. Getting there takes the long way. The souks and the market streets first, where the shopping is real rather than for visitors, and the guide shows you how it is done. Then the small local places for freshly baked Moroccan bread, pastries and the street snacks that do not make it onto menus. Rahba Kedima is the stop worth slowing down for. It is the old square where the spice stalls are, and the guide uses it to explain the ingredients that define Moroccan cooking and the centuries of trade that put them there. Marrakech was a caravan terminus long before it was a destination. Along the way: olives, nuts, dried fruit, harira, pastries. Twelve people at most, in English, with everything on the tour and the dinner. Vegetarians and vegans can be accommodated if you say in advance. Children under six come free. Comfortable shoes, and bring a camera, because the square after dark is worth it. Hotel transfers and anything extra you order are not included.