Safran by Kôya — Restaurant in Marrakesh Prefecture

The food was fantastic (Could have used a bit more salt though)! Drinks and service was also top-notch. However, the organization and the show, something we were very excited about, were not at that level. Let me explain why.

The experience: We booked a table at 8pm. We didn't know when the show would start and you cannot find anything on the website, unfortunately. We simply guessed that 8 would be a reasonable time to experience it. We had dinner, more than an hour has gone by, but no show yet. Guests at neighboring tables were also wondering about it and didn't know when/if the show started. We ordered some desert and when we were almost finished, the show finally started after all. Hooray!!! Right? Well...

The first "act" was a saxophonist. He played for a bit and it was quite nice. There was a great energy in the room. After he finished his song, the waiter asked us, if we wanted a coffee or something else after our desert. I asked to see the menu again to maybe order some wine or another cocktail. So far so good...

The Problem: 5 minutes later the waiter came by and instead of giving us the menu, he asked us to leave the table, because it was reserved for the next people. At this point we sat there for a bit more than 1.5 hours. For a whole dinner experience that includes a show (or was supposed to), I don't think 1.5 hours is enough, especially if you pay this kind of money for it. It was also weird that the table next to us, who was already eating when we arrived, did not have to leave. And they were also tourists like us who were there the first time, which found out from our conversation with them. So it's quite strange that we were asked to leave for the next guests, even though we were a) planning on ordering more drinks and b) the people at the table next to us were sitting there for much longer. The other table next to us also left just before the show started, and I can imagine they were also asked to leave and didn't go by themselves. We were at least offered to sit at the bar to grab another drink and watch the show, but it was so incredibly crowded, that this would have been impossible. There were already 3-4 rows in front of the bar and we didn't want to squeeze in this big pile of people. The fact that it is so crowded definitely affected the experience as a whole, because it is super loud and busy, which makes it quite hard to relax and simply enjoy a nice dinner and a show. One final incident, that I want to point out, is that the waiter kind of asked for a tip. I mean, of course we're gonna give a tip, but being asked 'do you want to pay for the service in cash or by card?' is a bit rude and unprofessional, especially after making us leave the table against our will.

Overall: I think it is still a great experience and well worth a visit. The quality is excellent, but you should be able to expect that for the price you pay. What I want to leave you with is the following: Don't have too high expectations regarding the show and the atmosphere! Be aware that you might be unlucky with the timing of your reservation and that you don't get to experience the show. And even if you get to experience the show, you might not be able to see it fully, because you could get a bad table, or because it is so crowded that people are constantly walking in front of you.

PS: I really don't understand why Safran isn't more transparent with the timing of their show. It's disappointment...

I just want to preface this by saying we were really hyped for this evening - we had heard so many great things about the food and the show from both tourists and locals, and the other reviews were really promising too.

However, we left the restaurant feeling extremely let down by our experience. Firstly, front of house staff were tapping away on their phone when we arrived; not the best first impression. We were given our menus and when we saw the food options we got excited; we were also happy to see that allergens were acknowledged at the bottom of the menu as my partner has a dairy allergy (which we mentioned in advance when we booked). However, when we tried to order, staff didn't understand what a dairy allergy meant, and when we explained that it was an allergy to milk products, they kept asking if butter was ok (it's not).

Once we'd managed to explain the situation a bit better, we went through several different starter options and asked if there was any way to make them dairy free; we were told this wasn't possible. Finally, we got to the beet carpaccio, which we were reassured was dairy-free if we left the cheese off, which we were more than happy to do. So we ordered our starter and managed to find appropriate mains too, and we were excited to tuck into our starter while waiting for the show to begin.

However, our starter never came. About 15 minutes after ordering, we suddenly just had our main courses placed in front of us with no explanation. We asked if they could wait until we had our starter, which seemed to confuse our waiter. The person who took our order then came over to our table and explained that it turned out that the beet carpaccio did have butter in it after all, so he cancelled it. We weren't asked at any point if we would like to try and find a different option, and were told our main course was ready so we should just have those and maybe think about dessert instead (most of which was also dairy-based). The food was fine, but for nearly 300 dirhams (~30 euro) per plate I have to say I expected more in terms of both quality and quantity. Not an ideal experience, but at least we still had the show to look forward to, we thought.

But no. You see, we had booked a table at 6:30pm. On the restaurant's website, when you click on "The Show" part, it makes no mention of the time when the show starts (which is 9pm, in case you missed this detail too dear reader). It only says it says that the restaurant is open from 5pm to 2am. We were also not told this on arrival, and the few other guests that were there at the same time as us seemed equally as confused. Trawling back through the website I did eventually find a mention of the show starting from 9pm, but I feel like this needs to be made much clearer...it should at least be mentioned under the "Show" tab of the website I feel! At the time we were eating, there wasn't even any music playing to try and make the ambience a bit nicer.

Overall just a really disappointing experience from a place that charges Michelin Star prices for poor service and an average...

As a touring artist, I’ve been to fine dining establishments all over the world, mainly across the Asian, European, North America and African continents. NEVER had I witness the level of disrespect and lack of basic manners and professional conduct as I witnessed last night (27 Sep. 2025) in this place. The minute I planned my trip to Marrakech I made the reservation at Safran (reservation was made 16 days in advance -11 Sep. 2025- booking confirmation proofs attached).

Then I was asked to re-confirm my reservation again on the 21 Sep. 2025, which I did (re-confirmation request and double-confirmation proofs attached).

And lastly, I received a reminder from the resturant one day before my booking in regard to my double-confirmed booking (proof attached). Only to be told by the bouncers at the door that there is no reservation under my name, I told them that can’t be possible I have a reservation confirmation, a re-confirmation and reminder all from the resturant. They said we can’t help you, but will call our head of reservations, then this young lady shows up, without even asking for the details and confirmation from our end, and simply tells us “you don’t have a booking with us”. And simply left. The bouncer tried to bluff and said that there is an issue with the booking system for two days now, I told him that even if that was remotely true; I made my booking 16 days ago and not the past two days. We then left shocked from the ethics of a so-called fine dining establishment. Only to discover that the resturant proactively canceled our reservation two hours after our booking (the one they claimed wasn’t even appearing on their system - evidence attached).

This only proves that the resturant not only lacks the fundamentals of customer experiance, but rather adopts a systematic racism towards a certain ethnicities/groups. Cause the only reason that lady came down to the entrance is for “Face Control”, as if we were entering a nightclub not a resturant, with total disregard to the hassle we went through to insure we have a booking, stick to the dress code, and be there on time for our reservation. It’s absurd that not even world-foremost establishments such as La Mamounia and Royal Mansour would treat its customers with contempt as this TikTok-overhyped joint think they are entitled to!

P.s.: Last photo is us after wasting 20 min. trying to enter the resturant with our legit and valid booking. Incase the resturant decided to fabricate a story that they canceled the reservation because we...