What is the best place in Morocco for food?

Foodies get a genuinely tough choice here, and I split it down the middle. Fes is the cradle of Moroccan haute cuisine — Fassi cooking is the refined, layered, palace tradition, and the city takes its food seriously in a way that shows. The pastilla here (the sweet-savoury pigeon or chicken pie dusted with cinnamon and sugar) is the benchmark version. The tagines are slow and complex, the seasonal specialities run deep, and a meal in a grand Fes riad-restaurant can be a multi-hour event. For the deepest, most traditional cooking, Fes wins on quality.

Marrakech wins on range and theatre. The headline is the Jemaa el-Fnaa at night, when the square fills with smoke and food stalls — grilled meats, snail soup, harira, sheep's-head for the brave, and rows of fresh orange-juice carts. It is touristy now and you should pick busy stalls with high turnover, but it is still a genuine spectacle and a cheap, lively way to graze. Beyond the square, Marrakech has the country's most diverse restaurant scene, from street-food crawls in the medina to ambitious modern Moroccan kitchens and rooftop dining. If you want variety and food-as-entertainment, Marrakech.

Whichever city you pick, do a cooking class — it is the single best food experience in Morocco and I recommend it to nearly everyone. A good class starts in the souk choosing produce and spices, then you cook a tagine and a salad spread and eat what you made. It demystifies the cuisine and travels home with you. Marrakech has the most classes and the slickest operations; Fes's classes tend to be more intimate and traditional. Either way, budget half a day for it.

A couple of honest pointers. The best Moroccan food is often not in restaurants at all — it is the home cooking you get at a riad dinner or a Berber family lunch on an Atlas trek, so seek those out. The coast (Essaouira, Oualidia) is the place for seafood, grilled straight off the boat, which neither inland city can match. And vegetarians do well everywhere — vegetable tagines, zaalouk, the salad spreads are excellent. But for the question as asked, Fes is the soul of the cuisine and Marrakech is the buffet of it; pick by whether you value depth or breadth.