What are the best restaurants in Fes?

Fes is, to my mind, the true culinary capital of Morocco, and its restaurants reward you for venturing beyond the obvious. At the refined end, the city does something special: dining inside restored palaces and riads where the setting is as memorable as the food. The Ruined Garden, set in the overgrown courtyard of an old house, does beautifully judged seasonal Moroccan cooking in a magical garden; Nur offers an ambitious tasting-menu take on Fassi ingredients; and the dining rooms of grand riads like Palais Amani and Riad Fes serve polished versions of the classics under tiled arches. This is where to taste pastilla — the sweet-savoury pigeon or chicken pie dusted with cinnamon and sugar — done the way Fes invented it.

For honest, everyday eating, Fes is wonderful precisely because it is less touristy than Marrakech, so the local food scene is more authentic. The Achabine area near R'cif, and the food stalls strung along the lower medina, turn out grilled brochettes, bowls of bissara (fava bean soup) for breakfast, harira, and sandwiches stuffed with kefta or merguez for a dollar or two. I always tell guests to follow the Fassi office workers at lunch — wherever there is a queue of locals at a hole-in-the-wall, the tagine or the maakouda (potato fritters) will be excellent and cost a fraction of any terrace.

The third category is the rooftop terrace, and in Fes these are about the view as much as the meal. Because the medina is a bowl of green-tiled roofs ringed by hills, a terrace at golden hour — whether at your riad or at a restaurant like the upper levels of Palais Amani — turns dinner into theatre. The food on these terraces is usually solid rather than spectacular Moroccan standards, so I am honest with people: come for the panorama and the atmosphere, and if you want the very best cooking, do that at ground level in the serious kitchens.

My honest guidance: eat at least one proper Fassi feast in a restored palace to understand why this city is revered for its food, balance it with cheap, brilliant local meals in the medina lanes, and book at least one rooftop for sunset. A few of the finest restaurants take reservations and sit down tricky-to-find alleys, so have your riad book ahead and arrange a porter or directions. Openings, kitchens and chefs change, so check current reviews and that a place is still trading before you build an evening around it.