Villa Carleton — Restaurant in arrondissement de Tanger-Medina طنجة المدينة

This charming Tangier café and restaurant, located off Sidi Amar in a former house—a white villa, circa 1932, with an enormous glass-enclosed dining room overlooking a quiet outdoor dining garden— is close to my house. The place is simple, fairly quiet, attractive and comfortable.

I invited two friends for an early dinner, and we walked through the main entrance past a black leather Chesterfield sofa and were politely greeted by a waiter. We decided to sit outside where it was a bit cooler.

After we looked at the menu, we decided to have three different pastas—penne with beef, penne with salmon and Asiatic-style pasta.

The waiters are reasonably attentive and our pastas were tasty but the portions were on the skimpy side with little sauce and a tiny bit of grated cheese, and served tepid or lukewarm. We ordered two small bottles of water as no wine, beer or other alcohol is served. The bill total was around 250 Dirhams plus tip.

I will eat breakfast at Villa Carleton at a later date. I think this cafe-restaurant is a good alternative to all the downtown cafés and flashier places in Tangier that are filled with noisy tourists.

Credit cards are accepted. No alcohol is served here, but hopefully once it gets a liquor license the restaurant will have more customers. Villa Carleton has yet to be completely discovered as it’s fairly new, but it definitely has great potential.

I counted four men and 33 women, mostly Moroccans wearing djellabas. There were several well-behaved young children in the garden, and inside I could see sparklers as I heard “Happy Birthday” being played on a loudspeaker.

Villa Carleton serves couscous on Friday. It is generous and reasonably priced. You'll love sitting in the huge glass-enclosed room as it actually feels like you are sitting outside in a garden.

Debit and credit cards are accepted.

In addition to Moroccan and European foods, you can also order Japanese sushi from Le Petit Jap, which has its own separate menu. Le Petit Jap and Villa Carleton share the same space.

Service by polite and efficient waiters is...

It’s too bad I can’t give 0 stars because I would. This restaurant is a disgrace. While I was sitting having my (underwhelming) crepe and (overpriced) drink, a cat approached my table clearly looking for some food when out of nowhere the manager comes from behind me and kicks the cat in the stomach sending the poor thing flying away as he nonchalantly walks away. While my friends and I are still trying to process what happened, he comes back around and tries to justify his behavior by saying that I shouldn’t feed the cats and that they are bugging customers and while it would be “easier” to “give them poison and kill them”, that would be “inhumane” (yes thank you for the ethical speech) and spends a whole 10 minutes trying to justify his erratic almost psychotic behavior. While I understand that me feeding the cat a piece of chicken was “wrong” I somehow feel that the situation could have been handled a lot less aggressively.

Finally, as we were ready to pay the bill, we notice that we have been charged extra. Confused, we ask and the manager lets us know that they had “accidentally” given us a “faulty menu” with the wrong prices for drinks and that the drinks we ordered were significantly more expensive than what was on the menu. They refused to give us back our money and argued that there’s nothing they can do.

All in all, this has been a horrible experience with an extremely rude and aggressive manager. I would most definitely not recommend this place to my...

A very pretty place in a lovely garden setting, quiet and comfortable. The food was delicious, but portions are tiny. I think they could have been a little more generous. We were served promptly and in a friendly way, initial service was quick and efficient, but after we finished our main course we waited at least 45 minutes. with dirty plates on the table before anyone returned to ask if we wanted a beverage or dessert . Finally when someone did show up with the credit card machine we told him we wanted dessert and so he obliged and brought my dining companion his tarte citron and me the carrot cake, which I was delighted to see on the menu as I had not seen carrot cake on a menu anywhere in Tangier. Sadly, my cake was frozen solid on the inside as they had not removed it from the freezer in good time and this spoiled the experience for me. I think they might have known the cake was still frozen when they cut this slice but chose to ignore it. As with so many establishments in modern Tangier there is a distinct lack of concern for customer service and detail. In other words, no commitment to excellence. I think this might be due to a lack of international experience so I'll give the place another try and see if things...