Restaurant Bab Ssour — Restaurant in Chefchaouen

Not sure how this place could be 9th on Tripadvisor. I choose this place after reading the reviews on the popular travel website and felt like it would be a really good lunch.

As soon as we arrived we were welcomed by the waiter and asked to seat on the terrace. The menu looked good and we decided to order a tagine with chicken which my partner loved in the 8 days we have been in Morocco, so he knew really well what to expect. I decided to try a squid prawn tagine and a Chicken Pastilla (which I had the chance to eat once in Ouarzazate and found delicious).

We were given some olives and spicy dip to start with, when the main comes we first get the tagine with prawn and squid. As I tried the first mouthful a weird taste hits, I take the second mouthful and I asked my partner to try and I concluded that in some bits had an after taste of ammonium. I voiced my concerns to the waiter (obviously i did not expected it had ammonium in it but some reassurance at least..) but he laughed telling me that there was just tomato paste, squid and prawns.

I had to leave it, it just didn’t taste ok.

My partner didn’t have much luck either, as previously mentioned he had chicken tagine probably for most of our holidays so he knew already what to expect. Everytime we had a tagine chicken would melt in your mouth so tender it was and often you didn’t need to use a knife. The chicken in the tagine looked like it wasn’t cooked with the rest of the vegetables, was really dry and burned, like it was reheated and added into the mix. Also, the vegetables didn’t mixed together properly with the rest and the flavours were all over the place.

The pastilla was probably the only plate I can’t say anything about it as I had it just once before and the one I had in Ouarzazate was really good.

To finish, the service was also average, to say the least, waiters on their phones, playing videos and such. Didn’t not feel welcoming at all as in most of the places we have visited. I am sorry but this is the worst places we had food in.

Also… at least a plate for the...

My wife and I dined at this establishment, and shortly thereafter, both experienced significant gastrointestinal distress. The symptoms of persistent nausea, stomach cramps, and indigestion lasted over 48 hours. This kind of reaction is a serious indicator of either improper food handling practices or contaminated ingredients.

The food quality itself was far below acceptable standards. The beef tagine had the texture of over processed synthetic meat. Tough, rubbery, and suspiciously uniform. It gave the impression it had been either reheated multiple times or stored improperly. The accompanying salad lacked any freshness or seasoning and appeared to have been pre prepared and left sitting for too long, further suggesting a breakdown in safe food handling procedures.

Service was equally problematic. After delivering the food, the staff was notably absent, and no follow up was made to check on the quality or our satisfaction.

Given the volume of highly positive reviews online, I can only speculate that either management has recently changed or standards have sharply declined. Either way, there is a dangerous gap between the reputation this restaurant enjoys and the actual experience on the ground.

Bab Ssour may currently benefit from tourist hype, but in its present state, it does not meet the most basic expectations of hygiene, food safety, or hospitality. I would strongly advise a formal inspection by local health authorities. For the sake of public safety, and until serious corrective measures are taken, I would not recommend this restaurant to any visitors...

Inhumane conditions for the cooks in the kitchen. I walked by the kitchen and I could feel a temperature well above 55 degrees Celsius ( 130f ) that burned my face and I wasn’t even close to the stoves. By 9h30PM The cooks were cooking countless tagines and one of the lady felt so hot that she had her forehead and chin dripping non-stops over the plates. Even the floor was wet. The kitchen seem to have no SIMV- air flow/ forget about A/C. Some owners feel that they aren’t making money if they don’t have their workers suffering hell. The restaurant has plenty of openings on the street and a boxy mobile A/C with a tube wouldn’t be a luxury but the bare minimum for humane decency.

If you like modern slavery and sweaty food, go ahead you will love this restaurant. I will be going back to this restaurant next year just to check if they have improved the absolute insane enclosed kitchen and will definitely add another negative feedback.

Some people might think that I’m exaggerating, just ask the staff to take you to the kitchen during diner rush hour and you will see by yourself that it’s unbearable. Even staying in the sun in summer in the middle of the Sahara doesn’t feel that hot at all.

The tagines are very average and were dry, no sauce or only oil as the sauce mostly evaporated. ...