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  "path": "/2026/05/23/fez-moroccos-intense-city-found-best-way-28183921/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-23T08:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://metro.co.uk",
  "tags": [
    "Lifestyle",
    "Travel",
    "Foodie",
    "Hotels",
    "Metro Checks In",
    "Morocco",
    "Travel Inspiration",
    "Travel Reviews",
    "can wrong-foot even the most confident traveller",
    "tourism",
    "one of Morocco’s oldest cities",
    "Metro Deals",
    "Get deal now",
    "Palais Amani",
    "school",
    "Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google\nAdd as preferred source"
  ],
  "textContent": "Fez is one of Morocco’s oldest cities and the country’s intellectual heart (Picture: Luke Baker)\n\nFez is a city of ancient walls, colourful courtyards, and maze-like alleys that can wrong-foot even the most confident traveller.\n\nBut as Morocco’s tourism numbers continue to grow, it is slowly becoming known as the country’s finest food destination.\n\nFounded in the 9th century, Fez is one of Morocco’s oldest cities, and one that’s has always had top-class culinary credentials.\n\nThe local Fassi cuisine – a blend of Arab, Berber, Andalusian, and Jewish traditions that is widely considered the most refined culinary style in Morocco – is known for its complex spices, sweet-savoury combinations and slow, precise cooking.\n\nAnd travellers are starting to understand that the Fez is not just something to look at.\n\nUnlike other touristy towns, Fez is a city where people actually live (Picture: Luke Baker)\n\n##  Best of Best of Metro Deals\n\nGet exclusive discounts with Metro Deals – save on getaways and spa days. Powered by Wowcher\n\n**Bannatyne Spa** : Spa day for two with treatments, lunch & prosecco — save up to 57% off.\n\n Get deal now\n\n**Mystery Escape** : Hotel stay with return flights from as low as £92pp — save on worldwide holiday packages.\n\nGet deal now\n\n**Beach Retreat (Lanzarote)** : 4* Lanzarote beach holiday with flights — save up to 58%.\n\nGet deal now\n\nIt is something to taste.\n\n**Metro** ‘s Luke Baker checks in to a hotel with one of the best restaurants (and cookery schools) in the city.\n\n## The hotel hidden behind a door\n\nI’m staying inside the medina at Palais Amani, a restored 17th-century palace now operating as a boutique hotel that’s known for serving some of the best food in town.\n\nIt has just 21 rooms, which helps it avoid the vibe of a big luxury property dropped awkwardly into an old city.\n\nPalais Amani, an oasis in the heart of the medina (Picture: Luke Baker)\n\nMy room overlooked the courtyard below, with blue tiles, lush greenery and a fountain running through the day. But on to the grub.\n\nFood at the hotel starts early and with intent.\n\nBreakfast is not the usual hotel buffet affair. Served in the hotel’s restaurant, Eden, it arrives as a full table experience: fava bean soup, fresh breads, savoury pastries, olives, jams, honey and olive oil. It’s a serious amount of food **–** enough that lunch is not even a consideration.\n\nCome evening, the restaurant shifts into dinner service.\n\nA beautiful setting (Picture: Palais Amani)\n\nThe menu is short and traditional, which feels right for the setting. There are briouats (a kind of puff pastry) filled with seafood, meat or vegetables; chicken and almond pastilla; tajines; seven-vegetable couscous; and fish dishes such as sea bass or sea bream cooked Fassi-style.\n\nIt is rich food, but not heavy for the sake of it, and it has that distinct Moroccan balance of sweet, savoury, and spice.\n\nVegetarians are catered for, though it’s worth flagging early.\n\n## The best way to understand Fez? Cook it\n\nEating well in Fez is easy. Understanding how the food reaches the table takes a little more effort, which is where the hotel’s cookery school comes in.\n\nThe cookery school at Palais Amani (Picture: Luke Baker)\n\nPart of the class involves shopping for ingredients in the medina.\n\nLoubna, the hotel’s experience coordinator, leads the way through the alleys with the confidence of someone who knows every shortcut.\n\nWhat had felt chaotic on my own begins to make sense with someone local leading the way **–** knowing where to stop, what to look for, which ingredients matter and why.\n\nOne stop takes us above the medina to a small tea shop run by Sidi Abdullah, known locally as the Tea Man of Fez.\n\nHis shop has been open since 1969, and he lays out the herbs with quiet precision: geranium, sage, sheeba, verbena, common mint, spearmint, peppermint and marjoram.\n\nCooking, the Moroccan way (Picture: Luke Baker)\n\nBack at the hotel, the cooking school takes place in a large open-plan kitchen on the top floor, overlooking the city, with chef Oussamaguiding us through each stage.\n\nI make a vegetable tagine, which sounds simple enough until you are suddenly very aware that you are cooking a Moroccan dish in Morocco while being watched by people who know exactly what it should taste like.\n\nThankfully, it’s relaxed rather than intimidating. The class is hands-on andinformal, with enough guidance to stop you ruining dinner but enough space to feel as though you had made it yourself.\n\nLater, the finished tagine is ferried downstairs and served to me in the restaurant.\n\nFassi cuisine is all about complex flavours and spices (Picture: Luke Baker)\n\nThere are more polished dining experiences, but few as satisfying as eating something you have just made, especially when it began with ingredients chosen in the medina that morning.\n\nThe cooking experience costs €176 for two people, including ingredients and the souk visit, with larger group options available.\n\n## The verdict\n\nFez is not the obvious choice for a city break.\n\nIt can be confusing, noisy and at times, claustrophobic. You need patience, decent shoes and a willingness to accept that you will get lost, at least once.\n\nBut it is also one of the most memorable places I have visited.\n\nFor travellers interested in food, the appeal is in seeing how closely it is tied to the city itself **–** its markets, ingredients, family-run kitchens and the daily rhythm of the medina.\n\nAnd if you find the right door to step through, it might be one of Morocco’s most rewarding food breaks.\n\n##  Fez at a glance\n\n**Time:** Morocco operates on GMT+1\n\n**Weather:** Fez experiences a hot-summer Mediterranean climate with strong continental influences, featuring average highs ranging from 17°C in winter to over 37°C in the peak of summer.\n\n**Adaptors** : Type C & E (European two-pin plugs)\n\n**Currency:** The local currency is the Moroccan Dirham (MAD)\n\n**Visas:** No visa required for UK passport holders for stays up to 90 days\n\n**Check in /check out:** 3pm / 12pm\n\n**Disability access?** Six ground floor rooms and lift access ffor all floors and terrace.\n\n**Standout feature:** Palais Amani’s large central garden courtyard and rooftop terrace overlooking the Fes medina\n\n**Perfect for:** Culture-focused city breaks, architecture lovers, travellers wanting a tranquil medina escape\n\n**Not right for** : Small children, very much adult-focused\n\nComment now Comments \nAdd Metro as a Preferred Source on Google\nAdd as preferred source\n",
  "title": "Fez is Morocco’s most intense city – but I found the best way in"
}