El Cielo restaurant — Restaurant in Chefchaouen

May 8th, 2025

I’m currently staying at the hotel Molino Garden, that houses El Cielo restaurant, and my experience was nothing short of demeaning.

At 6 pm, I sat at a table on their terrace and asked for the menu. The waiter told me the kitchen wasn’t open yet but that I could order drinks, which I did. While I worked on my laptop, I saw the waiter taking orders from other tables, but he didn’t come to mine.

After some time, he finally approached me and told me the table I had been sitting at for the last hour was reserved. There was no sign, no prior warning, and the restaurant had plenty of staff around. Instead of offering to seat me elsewhere, the waiter simply stood a couple of meters away and kept repeating that the table was reserved, showing no concern or respect for my situation.

I felt deeply disrespected and uncomfortable, so I paid and decided to leave the table.

When I went inside to speak to one of the three men who seemed to be supervising the staff, I was told the manager wasn’t available. But from their response, it was clear that the staff's behavior was condoned by the management. Not one of them offered a solution or even acknowledged the unfairness of the situation, even though the restaurant was half empty.

What truly struck me was how the staff made no effort to accommodate me, offering instead to seat me in a hallway, a suggestion that felt intentionally dismissive. It was obvious to me that as a Moroccan national, I was being treated differently from the tourists around me.

This kind of behavior isn’t just poor service—it’s discriminatory, and it stems from a management that allows such treatment to happen.

I urge you to be cautious when choosing a place to dine in Morocco. Look for a restaurant where all customers, regardless of nationality, are treated with respect and care. El Cielo is not a place where local guests are valued, and their treatment of me reflects a lack of true Moroccan...

Pros: Nice location, decent prices, good variety, good table service

Cons: poor table management/ long/ misleading wait time

We showed up at 720, as we were staying in the attached Hotel Molino. We didn’t have a reservation, so the manager took our room number and let us know he would come get us in about 40 minutes. After about 1 hour of waiting, we returned and were told we would have a table soon, he was just waiting for an outside one (we didn’t specifically request one). We proceeded to wait an extra 40 minutes, before we finally spoke up when we noticed they sat new walk ins inside before us, and then were going to sit another couple outside before us. It turns out that the second couple also had the same issue as us. We would have been fine with being told it would be a longer wait, it was just a bit disrespectful that we had to wait as long as we did and we probably would have just gone elsewhere. We ended up waiting about 2 hours total before we got a table.

On the upside, the waiter who served us was kind and attentive, and the food was ok - the lamb pita was tasty, the chicken pastilla was a bit too sweet but was cooked nicely, the cheese cake was very good, but the baklava was disappointing - hard and relatively...

This place is just perfect. Firstly when we entered, i thought we we're in wrong place, because they got so big and brilliant garden, like the one you pay to see in Marrakesh. Second, the service just great, they are so many, if they are full (which are like i see every night), they have time for you always. The waiters have time to just observe the people, so they just always available. They speak English well, they are polite and professional. Third, the food are high quality, served with nice plates and they are just tasty and great. You can try Moroccan authentic food here for sure. And the final thing, this is for great prices. You can eat for full for 100-150 MAD per people because they got you a starter for free, which were brilliant.

I recommend you to make a reservation, because this restaurant are always full or go exactly at 7 p.m..

We spend 2 night in this town, we came back to the second night as well, without reservation, we got the same place like last night and we got the same best foods and services.

Come to this...