Where do you eat in Casablanca?

Casablanca is Morocco's most modern, worldly city, and eating here is a noticeably different experience from the medina-feast tradition of Fes or Marrakech. This is where you come for the country's most ambitious cooking: polished French-Moroccan fusion (a legacy of the French era), serious seafood restaurants, glamorous art-deco brasseries and a genuine contemporary dining scene. Casablancais take their food and their nightlife seriously, so if you want a sharp, stylish, big-city dinner with creative plates and a good wine list, this is the place in Morocco to have it.

Geographically, two areas anchor the good eating. The seafront — the Corniche and the Ain Diab district — is lined with smart restaurants, beach clubs and lounges where you dine with the Atlantic crashing alongside; seafood is the obvious order, and the sunset setting is lovely. The other pole is the city centre and the old medina, where the famous Marché Central (central market) is a joy: you can buy fish straight from the stalls and have the little adjoining restaurants cook it for you, cheap and superb. The old medina and the working-class quarters also hide excellent, unpretentious local eateries and street food for a fraction of Corniche prices.

Casablanca is, of course, home to the one restaurant every visitor asks about: Rick's Café, the lovingly recreated piano bar inspired by the film, with its arched interior, live music and Moroccan-international menu. It's unashamedly a tourist institution and prices reflect that, but plenty of travellers find the atmosphere worth it for one memorable evening — book ahead. Beyond the icon, look for the elegant seafood houses, the brasseries around the Boulevard, and the new wave of chef-driven spots that have given the city real culinary credibility.

A few practical truths. Casablanca is more formal than Morocco's other cities — at the upscale restaurants people dress up, so leave the desert dust behind and bring something smart. Reservations matter for the best places, particularly at weekends. It's also one of the easier cities to find alcohol with dinner, given its cosmopolitan, licensed restaurants. And don't overlook the humble end: a plate of fresh-grilled fish from the central market, eaten elbow-to-elbow with locals, can outshine a fancy dinner and costs almost nothing. Casablanca rewards eating across the whole spectrum, from the white-tablecloth to the market stall.