Nur — Restaurant in Fez

We wanted to give chef Najat Kaanache a try despite mixed reviews, and we were wrong. The whole experience was terrible, and we felt it was in fact a SCAM. We will say that SOME of the food at least was interesting, but overall this was NOT fine dining, and NOT worth the money. It was a confused and random attempt at nouvelle cuisine which was poorly executed and terribly served. What's sad is that with just a few decisive changes, at least some things here could be saved. But as it currently stands, Nur should close. It all started with the booking - it didn't bode well that everything had to be prepaid, indicating a lot of unsatisfied customers refusing to pay? Regardless, the booking offered a pickup service from our Riad (guesthouse) which we paid for, but nobody came to pick us up. We were surprised we could book a table at 6:30pm since it was Ramadan and sun wouldn't set until 6:52pm but we believed their booking site. Of course we were wrong again. When we arrived, the restaurant was still closed. After waiting for 5 minutes in front of their closed door, a souschef showed up from the street ready to go to work. He was visibly surprised they had a booking this early. The lights were switched on, as was the enormous water feature which provides most of the soundtrack for Nur's (lack of an) experience. That is, until the "waiter" switched on their Bluetooth speaker to start playing a comedic mix of YouTube playlists vaguely in the "Pink Martini meets world music" camp. Interspersed with Moroccan YouTube ads because the restaurant clearly can't afford a Spotify or YouTube account. In short: the music would prove to be as terrible as most of the food.

After a few minutes our waiter had changed into his uniform shirt and came to apologise that we would have to be patient because of Ramadan. We suggested to come back later but he was very specific and said the wait would be "12 to 15 minutes"... probably something got lost in translation since we don't speak Moroccan and the waiter only had limited English, some German but no French. Regardless, the first course, a beetroot and ginger mocktail, only came out around 7:15pm, a good 45 minutes after our supposed start of the meal. It tasted interesting but it had a terrible odour of vinegar.

What followed were 9 more dishes with often interesting main ingredients totally ruined by flawed or failed flavour pairings. A recurring trend was definitely to add fruity flavours to everything, unfortunately. It seems chef Kaanache has a sweet tooth... melon, mango, strawberry, raspberry,... it was all too much. The worst was flakes of white fish served on what tasted like Danone chocolate pudding straight out of the tub.

There was no bread service, no drinks menu (ok, Ramadan, but a juice pairing perhaps?), no olives, no linen, no coat service, no printed menu, no flowers, no salt/pepper,.. in fact the only thing there to remind us this was supposed to be fine dining was the air of pretence and the faux (or long-gone) distinctions at the door.

What's sad is that so much of this could be saved and improved. A few small changes to the interior design, lighting, and tableware (adding table linen). Switching off the water feature and providing warmer lighting. Back to test kitchen for chef Kaanache to create a menu that works. Back to school for the team, or taking them to other restaurants so they get to experience how it can be done. And more importantly: stop making instagram videos and cooking TV shows but get your restaurant in order please, or close it all together. This was definitely not worth the EUR 90 per person, and even less the 2.5h of our time, which we mostly spent...

I’m not sure where to begin… what a bad experience and a true disappointment to Morocco.

I’ll begin with the worse part of it. We paid for the tasting menu online when reserving for the restaurant (CAD $200 or MAD 1 400). Upon our arrival, the waiters asked us whether we’d like still or sparkling water. We asked for sparkling water thinking the bottle was included in the price of the reservation… and we also asked for an extra 2 glasses of wine knowing that we’d had to pay for it at the end. Throughout the dinner, the waiters brought us 3 bottles of sparkling water and we didn’t think to confirm whether these bottles were included or not as they simply kept them coming. At the end of the dinner, they tell us that we’d had to pay for the two extra glass of wines we asked for (which is totally fine) but they also asked us to pay for the 3 bottles we drank. (That was very upsetting to say the least as they should have mentioned it earlier on in the dinner). The second annoying part was that they only accepted cash or PayPal as method of payment as they clearly didn’t accept the card. What high end restaurant (one that considers itself to be one of the best in Morocco) does not accept credit card payment??? All this to say that we couldn’t use paypal for some reason on our part and didn’t have enough cash on us so one of the waiters walked us to the closest ATM to withdraw money….. Once again which high end restaurant would deliver such low level service to their clients?

While the food was tasty, it did NOT taste remotely Moroccan, the service was one of the worse I’ve experienced in a so-called high-end restaurant and the atmosphere was similar to that of a club. The overall experience of the evening was quite upsetting.

We decided to select this fine dining restaurant because we were supposedly expected to be taken through a trip in the middle Atlas and discover Moroccan’s best flavours. The only trip we took was a short walk to the closest ATM.

The atmosphere:

Total mess. Pitbull music blasting in the dining room, people coming in and out of the restaurant shouting to people they knew in the kitchen in Arabic. Definitely miles away from our European or North American fine cuisine.

The service:

While I can appreciate that French or English is not their first language, it was a disaster trying to communicate with anyone. I’m fluent in French, English and Spanish and I couldn’t understand any of the 10 plates they described in front of us. On another note, half of their wine list wasn’t ‘’available’’ on the evening we ate there. We ended up having to take one of the most expensive wines on the menu as it seemed to be the only one available that evening.

Key Takeaways:

Food was tasty, but once again it didn’t make me discover Morocco at all. The waiter even described a plate as having Mexican flavours… Pitbull music and lack of respect for the atmosphere due to the people shouting in Arabic across the restaurant made whole experience chaotic. The lack of transparency regarding the price of the bottle of water (MAD 50 per bottle) and the lack of options to pay for the bill definitely felt like a scam.

I do NOT recommend this restaurant, and this felt like a complete...

Well that was a waste of health and money

So, where to start....

First, we came to this place for the CV of the chef, Alinéa, El Buli and others with also quotes from Ferran himself. We thought it would be a wonderful experience, even though the price was 10 times more expensive than average price in Fez.

Food: Their website describe it as such: Nur offers fine dining in the Medina of Fes featuring the flavors of the Middle Atlas through a creative lens.

So obviously, we were expecting getting close to Moroccan flavors. Here is a non exhaustive list of ingredients which were surprising to find: shittake mushrooms, red caviar, black caviar but why not if it make sense in the story of the dish. But it does not.

You feel like dishes have been put together without any thoughts behind, as copycatting minimalist plates from 15 years ago without work on how to make it their own....

Only one ingredient per plate would be connecting with Moroccan roots....

It just does not work.

The apotheosis of deception was the first dessert, it feels like they did not know what to choose on this plate so they basically throw everything on it...

The second one was marshmallow with chocolate on top... Like we are 12 in the campfire....

The wine:

1 glass was 11$..... For ok wine.

The service:

Chaotic.

The English although not their native tongue should be understood well enough by the staff to explain us the dish not just give us the ingredients it's the base of fine dinning... The management should train their staff better.

I am not a native speaker myself but I know how to explain my business in English if someone is asking.

They did not have any Logic in changing the cutlery. Sometime yes sometimes no, sometime you get a meat knife... and they serve you mushrooms...

Sometimes they change yours but not the lady with you...

As it is forced to give 10% of the meal for service you do expect a good one for $20 dollars only for service for two in Morocco.

The location:

We are in Morocco, land of amazing mesmerizing riads, those were not making any sense. They looked like someone completely destroyed a beautiful building and took out all the colors....

The toilet did not make sense, bad User Experience as you can't close them completely and the sink has an opening on top which is not the one you are supposed to use.

And health.....

I still feel bloated after going to the restaurant yesterday evening. I've got cramps and all. Which I never had after 5 days eating in restaurants all over Fez and else.

To conclude: when you pay 240$ for this service you expect an positively mesmerizing experience. Not to leave a bad bad...