I just had a short vacation in Morocco, visiting Marrakesh and Essaouira, and I found it very accommodating for the vegan traveller. I even think eating raw here would be quite easy. I didn’t try though, as I wanted to satisfy my lifelong desire to eat couscous in Maroc… and satisfy it I did! I was concerned about the broth but I always enquired and was always guaranteed the veg dishes contained no animal stock what so ever. So I trusted.
Marrakesh
I started my days with breakfast at my hotel, Tchaikana: fresh fruit on the rooftop (oranges, strawberries), fig jam and tomato jam (yes really and it’s great), baguettes and special Moroccan flatbread (my fave, double check that there’s no butter). I brought along Lake Klamath blue-green algae to stir in my morning juice. I think it gave me lots of energy throughout the day.
Earth Café is the organic vegetarian and vegan restaurant of Marrakesh, and it is in the heart of the medina, just off the Jemaa el Fna square. They have six entrees, three of which are vegan and cost 60 dirhams [about 5 or 6 euros] for huge delicious portions. They also have good fresh juices. Earth Café is welcoming and friendly with a great atmosphere. This is the kind of place I would like to hug.
I visited Chez Chegrouni after hearing they didn’t use animal broth in their vegetarian dishes: in fact I even got someone from our riad [hotel] to double check! Fabulous view from the top floor terrasse of the square and the minaret. Cheap. Loved it. You even get to write down your own order.
Café des Epices is a wonderful, friendly, welcoming and stylish place. Spotless and with impeccable service, we ended up here for mint tea often. I enjoyed their vegan avocado and tomato sandwich served with bowl of warm stewed and spiced lentils and their fruit salad (swimming in fresh orange juice of course). Also, they have Wi-fi, but no I did not blog while I was there!
Terasse des Epices has the same owner as Café des Epices. Beautiful, cool, stylish, very comfortable, fun view, I can’t say enough about this place, especially the setting. I had tomato and cucumber salad, orange and strawberry juice, and penne with aubergine. Complementary bread and olives, as is common but always welcome in Morocco. Wi-fi here too.
Le Foundouk is rather Chic and quite lovely. Good food, including cooked salads, and the best couscous I had in Morocco. The classiest and most expensive place I visited.
Le Tobsil was recommended and hard to find, yet we were surprised to find it totally empty. No one came. We ordered some mixed salads. Nothing special.
Essaouira
Lalla Mira is an organic and ‘eco’ restaurant, hotel and spa. The food here was good: so good it was gone before I could take a picture. I had tabouleh with bulgur and their tagine with fennel: so perfectly spiced and I don’t mean spicy. Have a treatment at the spa for an authentic, if brutal and somewhat surreal, experience worth writing home about… but perhaps not blogging in great detail.
Cafe de l’Horloge provided good food in a nice square. Plenty of outdoor seating and street entertainers kept the music coming, for a small fee.
La Petite Perle is a charming, authentically decorated popular restaurant. Friendly service, great food. We tried green salad, an amazing aubergine salad (which is cooked, mashed and seasoned) and tagine.
In addition to restaurants I should mention that Argan oil is the pride of this area. Drive through argan orchards past cooperatives. I bought cosmetic and culinary varieties. This oil is all the rage these days, and it is very good. It is harvested in an interesting manner… look it up…
Street food
Street food is also a big part of the fun in Morocco –
- Bread on the street: Yum, yum, and also… yum. Hot, crispy, flaky and greasy.
- Orange juice: fresh, cheap, delicious.
- Dried fruit and nuts
- Popcorn
- Coconut and pineapple
In some ways, I found Vegan Maroc to be easier than Vegan Paris. I always felt that the people were keen to work with my diet and make sure that I felt welcome. I am looking forward to returning there some day soon.
Vegan Pilgrim 
Thanks for writing me! That is extremely helpful. I’m also thrilled that you made a post about vegan baking here. I’m dying because I don’t know how to bake in this city!
Is there a vegan community or anything in Paris? If there is, do they do dinners or anything together? it would be great to get to meet other people struggling in this meat and butter country!
Hi Rachel,
I have come across one vegetarian dinner group, although I haven’t taken part in their meetings. They are called ‘The Spicy Vegetarian Society’ and although they seem open to vegans, they do mention that the places they go to might not be suitable for vegans. Looks like they are meeting tomorrow for one of their not-so-frequent get-togethers. http://vegetarian.meetup.com/475/calendar/9902148/
I think it would be really fun to have a vegan dinner group: why don’t I do a post and see if we get any takers?
Great writeup for your trip. Are the cafes run by expatriates or native Moroccans? If it’s the latter, I’m utterly surprised ‘cos Muslim vegans are very very very rare. I’ve never heard of one before.
Hi KYH,
It was a great trip and I’m am glad you enjoyed the post. None of the restaurants I went to were vegetarian restaurants, except Earth Café, but vegetable dishes seem to be such a big part of the Moroccan diet that every place I went had several vegan options. I am not sure who owned the various restaurants, although they were staffed by locals.
I read your blog: it’s a lot of fun. Hope you make it to Paris!
Thank you for such a lovely and elaborate write-up and the followup. My son a vegetarian will be there for 2 months and I was worried. Now I am very relieved that he will find food easily. He loves street food and is very adventurous with his food within the vegetarian parameters. Shukriya 🙂
I hope he is having a great time. He is lucky to have such a thoughtful mother!
Emily
Sounds nice, glad your food experiences in Morocco were more positive than mine ;). Before going there, my friends and me were told eating vegan was very easy in Morocco. That was not exactly true. In big towns like Marrakech we had no problem and got really tasty tajines, but the rest of the country is a whole different matter. Couscous, they claimed (in the south) is only lunch food, so trying to get that for dinner was impossible, as was it to get anything vegan in a resturant not usually serving veg food. Spent a couple ‘a weeks eating salads and peas – tinned beans usually contained some meat! In spite of it, had a great time in Morocco and now I have some more suggestions for next time, so thank you :).
There are small restaurants that serve a tasty fava bean soup and fried potato patties that you can make a sandwich with and add some hot sauce. Grilled eggplants and a green cooked vegetable called khofezia were two of my favorite dishes at Djema El Fna. And there are veggie tagines at many of the smaller restaurants, served with bread and perhaps a salad. I love the carrot salads, beet salad and potato salads in Morocco.
Hello Emily,
I just wanted to say a huge thank you for your tips on where to eat in Marrakech. I was able to relax and enjoy my trip (albeit with rice cakes and peanut butter to hand) knowing I could eat well.
Thank you!
Pour celles et ceux qui adorent le maroc comme moi…
Hey,
Thanks for your pots sweetie Good that youre so positive, but being vegan and having a lactose intollerance I can tell you that Moroccans love deceiving foreigners and will test you for their amusement.
Manytimes, especially in cheap establishments, when I was told there was no milk or butter used my upset stomache and skin rashes told me otherwise. ASk firmly yet politely, take your time explaining and if necessary (in local establishments) explain that if your wishes arent respected they themselves can pay the bill.
However chic touristic places are just plain old splendidly accomodating, still in not very touristic places people might play stupid
My tip is inquire about what vegan dishes they have first and then see if you believe the waiter and you should think about spending at least 5 Euros a meal because cheaper establishments dont care at all.
Also, being really vegan I say no to buying all dried fruits of the streets, you wouldnt have been enjoying those dates as much if you knew how many times I found maggots in and outside of them, vigs arent even vegetarian so dont bother but dried nuts and raisins are good. Also at juicebars or salons de te et gateaux they might slip some milk into your juice if its banana kiwi or something like that make it clear you dont want any milk whatsoever.
As for for places to eat, surely vegan:
Juice bars (fruitsalads), supermarkets and practically all European establishments. An alternative is couscous and the moroccan salad of course but Tajine isnt even vegetarian in my opinion, considering traces of meat I spotted to my horror.
Yeah I have a lot of spare time on my hands, but we vegans should stick together. Hope it helps.
Vegan Armenian dude in Morocco
Thank you for this article, it was very useful!
How did you book your stay at the Riad Chaikana? Did you go through them directly? Do you know if they accept unmarried couples? Which room did you have and how was it? Was it quiet?
Sorry for all the questions, I like to have other people’s feedback before traveling abroad and it’s even better when it comes from someone vegan 🙂