What's the best food market to visit in Morocco?

Food markets are where I always tell travellers the real Morocco reveals itself — the colour, the smells, the haggling, the pyramids of olives and spices and dates — and the country has wonderful ones, each with its own character, so the 'best' depends a little on what you want from it. Let me run through the standouts, because honestly I'd visit several across a trip rather than crown just one; wandering a Moroccan market with a guide who can explain the spices and slip you tastes is one of the great cheap pleasures of the country.

For sheer sensory spectacle, the souks of Marrakech are unbeatable. The labyrinth of the medina includes dazzling food sections — the spice square with its conical mounds of cumin, paprika, ras el hanout and saffron, mountains of olives in every cure, dried fruits and nuts, fresh produce, and the theatrical chaos of it all. It's overwhelming in the best way, and a guided souk-and-food walk here is something I recommend to almost everyone. Nearby, the Mellah (old Jewish quarter) market is great for spices and olives with a bit less crush. Just keep your wits about prices and pickpockets in the densest lanes.

For actually eating at the market, Casablanca's Marché Central is my top pick and a slightly hidden gem. It's a bustling covered market where, alongside flowers, produce and groceries, fishmongers display the morning's Atlantic catch — and the brilliant trick is that small restaurants ringing the market will cook whatever you buy, plancha-grilled and fresh, for a modest fee. You pick your fish, hand it over, and minutes later you're eating superb seafood at a plastic table for a fraction of restaurant prices. It's the best market-to-plate experience in the country. Fes's ancient medina markets, meanwhile, are the most atmospheric and unchanged — intense, medieval, with the famous (and confronting) butchers' and produce lanes — the most 'real' market in Morocco, if also the most full-on.

On the coast, Essaouira's port and fish market are the place for absolute freshness — watch the blue boats unload, see the catch auctioned and laid out, and eat it grilled at the port stalls minutes later. And don't overlook the weekly rural souks: in country towns, a huge market takes over on one fixed day a week (the day varies and some towns are even named for it), selling everything from produce and spices to livestock, and stumbling into one is a fantastic, deeply local experience if your route lines up with the right day. So: Marrakech for spectacle, Casablanca for eating, Fes for authenticity, Essaouira for fish, and the weekly souks for the real rural rhythm. I'd taste my way through as many as I could.