Caravane Café — Restaurant in Essaouira

My Birthday Ruined. Food : 3* Drinks : 1* Service : 4* & 1* Ambience, Lighting & Music : 4*

Made a reservation for two enquiring on the performance… was confirmed by Didier himself. Arrived at the cafe, no reservation. Hmmmm. Ok, but they have this table for us right here. Nice, Sure thanks. The space is beautiful.

Hang on, it takes me a few minutes before I realise I’m staring right into the kitchen and basically my full attention is being drawn in to every kitchen function. Funky, but unfortunate. We got given the junk table.

I enquire on the performance and am told, oh no, “that’s our other location”, we will make a reservation for you there tomorrow night. Uhm, ok… thanks. Sure, why not! Thank you so much!

We order drinks and starters, mango mojito and mango daiquiri “fraiche” whatever that is. Turns out, don’t. It’s a soupy mango mush resembling but performing nothing like a cocktail. Undrinkable. The mojito was an equal mess. seeking experienced mixologist for immediate start

Now this is where things get really annoying. Some servers are friendly and some are arrogant. There is a blizzard of servers serving us all asking questions, placing things, taking things, kicking your chair, are you finished yet, are you finished yet, can I take that. Not one single person designated to the tables flow of service. Presumably it’s meant to be about offering good service, but it felt like an assault to get us seated, eated and out… in less than an hour we’d had cocktails, starters and a main… but really just wanted to get outa there because it was so very stressful.

Then I look online now, turns out the performance is shown at this same location but in a different area. The images and reviews interchange between the two, no wonder I was confused. So, with all this flurry or service, no one had the foresight or capacity to check between locations... at the same location, if I had a reservation. Then, the offered reservation for the following night really felt like a not-very-well concealed dive into my pockets.

The food… baked Camembert was good but I thought a roti was a soft Indian and Middle Eastern pancake bread, not a tiny crunchy biscotti. My bad. Chicken skewer was fine, the satay sauce was dismal. The chef has never tasted authentic satay. Perhaps it was peanut “fraiche”. The chicken pastry parcel was good and clever but that was it. A pastry parcel of chicken. No veg or accompaniment to break its monotony.

We did not wish to dine any further and left before trying anything more with two courses, drinks and paid in under and hour with nothing else planned for an evening that was meant to be an enjoyable annual remembrance.

I do not believe our presence will be missed at the performance...

Caravane Café in Essaouira is an amazing and unique restaurant and certainly one-of-a-kind in Essaouira, or anywhere else in Morocco.

This restaurant is art-filled and it has multiple private dining rooms on two levels with a tropical Caribbean ambiance and very tall banana trees in its central courtyard.

The creative food on the menu is prepared by well-experienced chef and kitchen staff and is a gourmet's delight to your palate. The unobtrusive waiters provide efficient and cordial service.

Fine imported and Moroccan wines and champagnes, traditional and exotic cocktails, whiskies and other alcoholic drinks are available along with fresh-squeezed fruit juices, coffees and teas.

Across the narrow alley is Le Love by Caravane. It is yet another fabulous restaurant, also with large dining atrium and separate bar room, filled with one of a kind objets d'art from all over the world. There are also many colorful paintings by the co-owner, French artist Didier Spindler. He has other of his paintings on display and for sale in Spindler Gallery, located across the street from both Caravane Café and Le Love by Caravane restaurants.

My brother and I first met Didier Spindler and Jean-Paul over 20 years ago on a small island in the Caribbean, when they owned a beautiful hotel and restaurant, Les Petit Saintes, on the small island of Terre-de-Haut, in the archipelago of Les Saintes, Guadeloupe.

I'm delighted that Didier has moved to Morocco, like me, and that he decided to settle in charming and tranquil Essaouira. His restaurants, art gallery and maison d’hôte are upscale and...

This is great for tourists but not for us. The service tried to be friendly but kept trying to take everything off the table before we were halfway finished. We had them bring back the olives 3 times. We ordered a bunch of appetizers and the monkfish for my dinner. All the appetizers were wonderful but they forgot to bring my dinner. The owner popped in to ask how things were and we said we were missing our entree. He left and a waiter appeared asking what we needed help with so we know the owner did not listen but just "they need something". The whole night was spent asking for things multiple times and each person had zero communication with the other guy. There were only 2 guys helping our table and both were constantly confused. They finally brought my entree and then things evened out. I could give a better star rating except for one thing, thus is the only place we ate (dinner) since breakfast and we got food poisoning. If we had eaten even breakfast together there might have been some question, but alas, we all ate one meal together then we're vomiting it back up overnight into the morning. Tastes great, less filling? Anorexic delight? Sorry for the one star but food poisoning is a ratings...