27

La Grande Table Marocaine

Marrakech

• The Best Restaurant in Morocco 2023

A magic carpet ride for serious gourmands

On the Pass

Karim Ben Baba

Pastry Chef

Jean Lachenal

Why so grand? Before the Royal Mansour, Moroccan fine dining rarely stretched beyond much-loved but ubiquitous fare – the same cooked salads, tagines and couscous you’d find anywhere, albeit in a spectacularly lavish setting. Then came La Grande Table Marocaine, where executive chef Karim Ben Baba and his team blew Moroccan food as we know it out of the water.

What’s the inspiration? Since the restaurant's opening in 2008, the team have spent part of the year scouring the country in search of historic courtly cuisine and traditional home cooking to devise a menu that showcases both the country’s culinary heritage and its future. Combining the finesse of French cooking with visionary daring, traditional dishes become even more extraordinary at La Grande Table Marocaine: boldly exotic plates of food that conjure all the magic of Arabian nights, with none of the cliché. Rather, these inventions speak authentically of both time and place.

Typical dishes: Picture the chef’s riff on a typical Moroccan egg dish, mostly cooked in private homes, reimagined as soufflé with free range chicken, fresh broad beans and Khémisset lentils. Or seffa medfouna – traditionally a sweetish, celebratory dish of broken vermicelli with chicken – reimagined with lobster, saffron-scented onions, raisins and ginger. Or succulent lamb ras m’fouar with cumin and Imouzzer truffles. No other restaurant does it better.

The overall experience? A sumptuous gastronomic adventure that takes you from the Mediterranean coast to the sands of the desert, across the Atlas Mountains and deep into the heart of Morocco, with service and surrounds that will make you feel like a king.

Contact