The restaurant on the edge of the Sahara

In my experience it’s almost inevitable that if you sit down to eat at a restaurant next to a major tourist attraction anywhere in the world, the food is invariably crap and overpriced. I guess a captive audience leads to lazy cooking and overzealous pricing.

So imagine my surprise when, in 50 degrees on a recent trip to Ouarzazate, in central Morocco, sweating, tired, thirsty and hungry, all my preconceptions went out the window into the shimmering heat haze of the Sahara desert. Sat on cushions in a breezy room in La Kasbah restaurant, a stone’s throw from the Kasbah Taourit, the town’s main attraction, we enjoyed a sumptuous three-course meal for the meagre cost of E10.

It took half a day to drive here from Marrakesh, traversing the Atlas mountains and driving through scorching desert past lush oases and crumbling adobe fortress towns. Ouarzazate is a bizarre place. It’s main source of income is from Hollywood. Numerous movies have been filmed here, ranging from Biblical classics to Star Wars and, more recently, Babel. It has wide modern avenues but retains a close affinity to traditional Moroccan architecture. People stop here en route to the desert. Beyond Ouarzazate there is Zagora, and then the Sahara.

We stopped at La Kasbah before visiting the Kasbah Taourit, just across the road. We climbed three flights of stairs, crossed covered terraces and entered a spacious room at the top of the building. Colourful cushions lined the walls, with low tables in between set for lunch. 

We ate salads to start with, followed by a choice of mutton and vegetable tagine with couscous, or mixed lamb and chicken brochettes. 

For desert, we had thick wedges of melon and watermelon, sweet nectar to dry throats and cracked lips, sore from the desert dust. We drank water – what else? – and washed down bite-size almond cakes with sweet mint tea.

Across the way, the Kasbah Taourit was a fascinating place to see. A former palace belonging to the Glaoui clan that once ruled this part of Morocco, it is a maze of cool, spacious rooms and narrow passages, stairs winding between levels, arched windows and intricate mosaics adorning walls and ceilings. 

One room was where the caliph's wives lived, hidden from view by intricate metal grilles that looked out over the town and allowed them to watch the world go by out of sight. It's a weird concept to get your around, but there you go.

We heard the history of this place from our guide Ali. In his white djellabah it was as if he had been plucked from the stories of harems and tribal fighting that he was recounting as we walked through.

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