Restaurant Café Des Arts — Restaurant in Essaouira

If you are curious about Moroccan music and like Moroccan food—or seek a cozy but lively atmosphere—go straight to Restaurant Café Des Arts and hear their live music and eat their delicious tagine. If you’re like me, you’ll spend a couple of hours there. (We went in the evening; I’m not sure if they have music in the daytime.). I spent a week in Morocco (Marakesh, Essaouira, El Jadid, and Casablanca) in late December, and the evening spent at Restaurant Café Des Arts was the highlight of my entire trip !!! That’s why I’m taking the time to write this review. We started on the rooftop (because it has a view) but immediately descended one flight to the room where one musician was singing and playing gimbri (plucked string instrument) while another guy sang and played percussion—but surprisingly he was the same guy who took our food order just moments before. That’s how it is at Café Des Arts: Presumably a family-runned business, at any moment another of the food wait staff joins in, singing and playing hand drums or another percussion instrument, each one a competent musician in his own right. At one point there were four musicians playing and singing together; while at other times it’s only one (while others serve food). This is a marvelous one-of-a-kind place. Even the cook sometimes takes a break and sits down next to you to enjoy the music. And the food ! Oh my, this was the tastiest tagine I had in my entire trip, and the portion was huge. I also had an eggplant salad that I enjoyed. Don’t miss the opportunity to go to Restaurant Café Des Arts while...

Café des Arts is a "must" in Essaouira for every musician. The food and the music is very good. The Gembri player is the best one I've seen so far and the staff sometimes get together to play the percussion and sing. The staff interacts with us and the athmosfere created is very funny, although my experience at this Café didn't finish so well because of the violinist. He is very rude, agressive, and actually does nothing relevant inside the...

Awful food. After coming back twice to say they could not make the Pastilla nor Rice dish, our water arrived. The bottle had been previously used, filled to the brim, and we speculate it was not filtered. 15 dh. After 25 minutes our food arrived. The Spaghetti Fromage was simply spaghetti with grated cheese on top. No sauce, onion, anything. Dry, tasteless, and late.

Without doubt the worst meal I have...