What is pastilla (bastilla) — the sweet-and-savoury Moroccan pie?

Pastilla — you'll see it spelled bastilla, bstilla or pastila — is the dish I send people to try when they want to understand how sophisticated Moroccan cooking really is. Imagine a golden, glistening pie of feather-light pastry (warqa, even thinner than filo), baked until it shatters at the touch of a fork. Inside: poultry slow-cooked with onions, saffron, ginger and herbs until it shreds, folded through a layer of fluffy spiced egg and a sweet, crunchy bed of fried almonds. Then — and this is the bit that stops everyone mid-sentence — the whole thing is crowned with a snowfall of icing sugar and a lattice of cinnamon.

That sweet-and-savoury collision is the genius of it. Your first forkful is buttery and meaty and aromatic, and then the sugar and cinnamon arrive and your brain does a delighted double-take. It sounds odd written down; it is extraordinary on the plate. The dish traces back to Andalusian-Moroccan kitchens and was historically made with pigeon (squab), which gives a richer, gamier flavour. Most restaurants today use chicken, which is milder and what you'll usually be served — still wonderful, just gentler.

There's also a brilliant modern seafood pastilla, especially around the coast — shrimp, white fish, vermicelli and herbs in the same crisp pastry, but savoury all the way through with no sugar. It's lighter and a lovely option if the sweet-meat idea gives you pause. And a smaller, dessert-leaning milk pastilla (pastilla au lait) layers the crisp pastry with almond cream and orange-blossom — pure pudding.

Practical guidance, because pastilla rewards a little planning. It is a special-occasion dish, labour-intensive to make, so you'll find the best versions in proper traditional restaurants and riads rather than quick cafés — and some need ordering a few hours or a day ahead. It's rich and generous; one large pastilla easily shares between two or three as a starter. Fes and Marrakech are the spiritual homes of the great savoury-sweet poultry version. If a single dish converts you to Moroccan cuisine, it's almost always this one.