Restaurant L’Italien par Simone Zanoni · La Mamounia — Restaurant in Marrakesh Prefecture

firstly the manager, Jamal has this obscure delusion that is quite hard to believe he landed this job. not only is he completely unqualified, a manager at a world renowned chef’s establishment, at a 5 star hotel. 90% of the dishes that came to the table were not good. either taste ( which i understand is relative ) or actually inedible because of the quality or over/under cooked. we had their set menu and added a few items from the normal menu because you could only have the dim sum if you ordered the set menu. i’d give the dim sum 2/5, the tuna tartare ( which he claimed is his best dish and was chocked w questioned the quality of the fish ) 1/5. lobster shu mai 1/5 ( was very fishy and not in a good uni way, in more of a they left it out or their fridge went bad). salmon sushi i would say 3/5 ( quality was okay, but not what you’d expect at this level of resturant and it was layered over fried rice which was very quite heavy for our taste and over powered the salmon. we were still not completely turned off from the resturant and awaited our mains. the seabass, i would give a -4/5 ( over cooked, fishy and just nasty ) chicken curry i would say also 3/5, wasn’t bad wasn’t good. anyway we told the waiter the fish was over cooked and this man had the most defensive reaction i’ve ever experienced in a restaurant ( and i’ve had some pretty bad experiences ) .

quick breakdown of his response; it’s our most famous dish, i gave it to the next two tables and they didn’t say anything. ( maybe jamal like statistics show; a huge percentage of people don’t enjoy sending things back or uncomfortable confrontation for that matter. ) it’s our most sold dish, there’s no way. and the fish is not fishy that’s how we serve it. ( i was eating the chicken curry actually and when it was very politely communicated to him the cooking of the dish, i took a bite to see what the fuss was about. ! i was going to vomit in my mouth ! ) he also sort of communicated that it doesn’t quite seem that we know much about food.

A restaurants best asset is customers that are honest and give constructive criticism. I myself am a chef, and i know how hard it is to receive bad feedback and that it’s only normal for a human to answer defensively. but this is just a whole new level.

anyway another red flag was the waiters mistakenly were going to put the wrong food on a table TWICE. we saw it first and had a laugh with the our very lovely waiter. and then it happened to us!

Ambiance - 7 /10 the ceilings and walls were magnificent, all with detailed islamic biomorphic designs.

Waiting Staff - 8/10 Abdelrazek our waiter - 10/10 Managerial Staff - 1/10 - ( jamal should definitely seek a new profession that doesn’t have anything to do with hospitality) Head Chef - 4/10 - ( didn’t agree fish was over cooked, and doesn't have a good pallet honestly. this doesn’t seem like a one off day for him, the menu is not cohesive )

Trip advisor & Google reviews are at 2.5 and 3.5. i think it’s time this resturant gets the wake up call, the mamounia hotel deserves.

chef jean george would be gravely...

L'asiatique par Jean-Georges

This review is for l'asiatique par Jean-Georges has I cannot find it elsewhere on Google maps.

Let me start by saying I am giving the restaurant 2 stars because the beautiful decor and setting, if not it would have been 1.

The experience did not live up at all to the caliber of dining experience one would expect from such a world renowned chef and we have had the pleasure of dining at many great restaurants, some being Michelin star rated. I did not have Michelin star expectations, I did however expect far more creativity and high caliber service from a chef with his reputation and in the location it is situated.

My wife was very excited about experiencing the Asiatique restaurant having travel to Macao and other part of Asia she was looking forward to top quality dim sums as advertised on their website.

The first two dishes, the shrimp dim sums were very nice and had a apricot sauce a nice twist and the sweet pea dim sums were nicely cooked and roasted garlic slices again a nice touch of creativity.

Second came the vegetable spring rolls which had nothing to set them apart from any other spring roll you can have at your local Asian restaurant. The chicken dim sums were also fine but nothing more and no signs of creativity.

What ended up being our last services were the crab croquets and lobster roll were flat out disappointing. The first crab croquet my wife ate had 2 pieces of shells and when I tried one I had the same issue. We opted to no longer eat this dish afterwards. The lobster rolls had the texture of rolls which had been prepared in advance since the soya wrap was showing signs or drying around the edges and the carrots where the star (unwanted) of the dish given the price of 50€ for 6 pieces.

During the meal I needed to serve our wine and water on a few occasions, and no I did not reach for the bottle as soon as our glasses were empty there were several occasions for them to be filled. We were also never asked about the dishes were during the meal, I needed to search for our waiter for 10-15 minutes to ask for the maitre d'hôtel so we can advise them of the disappointment.

The staff was apologetic and offered to replace the dishes, but at this time the disappointment had already set it and we simply wanted to pay our bill and move on. Last comment it took 20-30 minutes for us to receive the bill so we could finally leave.

In closing I highly dislike giving negative reviews, I do find it very important so people can be aware of the situation. Ironically I came very close to cancelling our diner as the reviews for l'Italian par Jean-Georges are not good but I could not find any...

Disappointed!!! I wish I had read the other reviews before booking!!! This place is extremely overpriced for average food and rude service.

I have been so impressed with how brilliant and accommodating the service has been in Marrakech - however, La Mamounia and this restaurant are the exception… The experience was poor from start to finish.

The entrance - the security and “host” at the entrance of La Mamounia were outright rude. Couldn’t have made us feel less welcome. This happened on two consecutive evenings, so I’m guessing it’s pretty consistently poor. A so called “5 star” hotel should be warm and welcoming at very least.

The restaurant - we were there with 14 people to celebrate a 30th birthday. The party was split into two tables about 4 metres apart, initially our requested to move them a little closer together was abruptly denied.

The food - you’re paying Michelin star prices for Pizza Express quality.

The wine - an amazing wine list, however, the prices were almost unbelievable… The House Wine (a standard Moroccan wine) was €100 a bottle. The cheapest wine on the menu was a sub par Moroccan wine for €60 a bottle. As a benchmark this is approximately 3 times more expensive than I’ve seen at any other “fine dining” restaurant in Marrakech.

Overall - I’d suggest skipping this place and rather going to one of the many amazing establishments in Marrakech like Dar Yacout, Le Bistro Arabe, etc. all of which...