00:00Hello, I'm Chef Clarice Joliker.
00:02Today I'm going to take you to three of my favorite restaurants in Marrakesh.
00:12This is where the chef eats.
00:19What I love about La Medina and Marrakesh in general is that the culture resembles my culture, Mexico.
00:25Everybody is very warm, everybody is very welcoming.
00:28When you're walking around, you're feeling alive, you see all the colors, the smells, the noise, the people, the motorcycle,
00:36the carpet.
00:37You just think you enter a different dimension.
00:40I almost come here every day to walk around, clear my mind, get inspired.
00:45It's very mashimushki, which means no problem, which is also part of my culture in Mexico.
00:52We don't take things too serious.
00:58The first restaurant I'm going to take you to is El Mida, which means table in Darija.
01:03I chose this place because it's a little oasis in the middle of La Medina.
01:08It's a rooftop where you can see the beautiful view all around us.
01:13Moroccan cuisine is very rich in flavor and here they do a fusion and I think it represents the new
01:21cuisine in Marrakesh because it's a mix of different cultures that come here and then they tell a story through
01:28the plates.
01:30Nothing more refreshing than lemon and mint after a long hot day at La Medina.
01:41Cafe, merci beaucoup, chocram.
01:44Enjoy it.
01:44Here is the cheese brewats, which is a simple dish, but it's delicious.
01:48It comes warm.
01:49There's honey on top and a little bit of sesame.
01:52Mmm.
01:53So good.
01:54And with the honey, it gives it a little bit of a contrast of sweet and savory, which is very
02:00Moroccan.
02:04So now we have the meshui, which is one of my favorite dishes.
02:07And here it's served with some cucumber and yogurt, which is a little bit of a tzatziki sauce, which goes
02:15perfect with it.
02:17Mmm.
02:18So good.
02:19The meshui has a taste of cumin, which is very smoky.
02:23It actually reminds me of the barbacoa that we have in Mexico.
02:27It's a fusion.
02:27It's a great dish to have a little taste of what meshui is.
02:34Here we have the gnocchi berber, which is a classic Italian gnocchi.
02:39But the sauce is the tomato sauce they use for les boulettes berber, which is a mixed fusion, like everything
02:46we've been having.
02:47It also has a poached egg in the middle.
02:52The whole point, you mix everything up.
02:55This dish, I had it since the first time I came here six years ago.
03:00This is a classic at Elmira.
03:05Mmm.
03:06And it's as good as the first time.
03:08It's creamy.
03:10It's juicy.
03:12There's some ricotta cheese.
03:14There's the egg yolk that melts.
03:15People come here for lunch, like us, after the walks in La Medina.
03:21You can also come and have just a Moroccan tea.
03:23I know it's warm and it's hot, but it's refreshing for some reason.
03:29Cheers, guys.
03:31Cheers.
03:35Now we are at our next stop, which is called Sahbi Sabi, which means my good friends.
03:43I love this restaurant because it's rooted in tradition. It's Moroccan traditional food
03:48and they make it in this beautiful contemporary place. I chose this because I really wanted to
03:54showcase the traditional Moroccan food that are dishes that have hundreds of years that are
04:01served the exact same way as they've always been and it's an all-woman's team. So the kitchen,
04:08all the dishes are made by women. Mmm. Shukran. This looks beautiful. So here we have a sweet pumpkin
04:17with sesame, sweet tomato with sesame and honey. We have the tatuka which is roasted peppers and then
04:25the lentils with some gili on top which is some dried aged beef. That's very classic in Moroccan cuisine.
04:35Honestly, every single salad is so different from each other but they all pair so well.
04:43Très, très, très, très bon.
04:48Biquet. Shukran. Merci. Mmm. It's noodles, chicken, some cinnamon and white powder sugar. Sweet and
04:59savory is the definition of Moroccan cuisine. You have Amasir, Jewish, Arab and Andalusian culture
05:07all mixed in one single dish and centuries of trades. It's the perfect dish.
05:19This is the beef tangia. It's working because it's been cooking in the wood for hours. Tangia is not
05:29made by women but it's actually, it was made by men. Workers in the Medina, they used to prepare the
05:35tangia
05:36and they used to throw everything in there, the beef, the garlic, some saffron and they used to cook it
05:42in the fire that used to warm the hammam and then at the end of the day they used to
05:47pick it up and eat
05:48it between guys. It's so simple yet there's so much behind it.
05:55You can see how the beef is melting, literally melting. Wow. I wish you guys could try this.
06:04It's really, really, really good.
06:11We are in Gelis, which is the modern part of Marrakech. I'm going to take you to Farmer's,
06:17which is another of my favorite restaurants here. Chef Driz, he loves to change the menu every week.
06:22Morocco is very seasonal so the second there's no more an ingredient, it's done. When I come here,
06:29it's like taking a break from all this noise. They have nice and calm music and I can actually have
06:34a conversation with my friends. I actually feel nurtured and nourished when I come eat here.
06:42Okay, so here is aguachile that is actually my favorite dish in all of Marrakech because it's
06:50a Mexican dish. This is the famous chef Driz. I don't know why he has this little obsession with
06:56Mexican ingredients because I think you lived in San Diego. Yeah, I lived in San Diego and the first
07:02bite of aguachile I had really made me fall in love with Mexican food. So it's aguachile of prawns,
07:07they're local tiger prawns caught in Guelizia and the twist we add is a bit of mint and a bit
07:13of dill for extra freshness and we serve it with homemade tostada.
07:18So the aguachile is a very traditional Mexican dish. It has something special about it. So the
07:25prawns, they're cooked in the lemon juice. There's also a lot of salt and it marinates with the
07:31pepper so it gives it a hint of spice. Also being in Marrakech, it's very hot,
07:36so it's a touch of freshness and I feel very light after I had this dish.
07:45So good and spicy how I like it.
07:54This is gorgeous. So this is our roasted cabbage flavored with salsa macho. Bon appétit.
08:04So good, delicious. Chef Brice uses different techniques with the same ingredients. So here
08:09you have the perfect example. He uses the choux that he cooks slowly but then you have the crispiness of
08:16the choux that is raw. It's so different but it's the same ingredients. This is really, really, really sublime.
08:28So now we have la pièce de résistance. This is our chicken dish. The thigh and the upper thigh we
08:34confit in olive oil. We decided to go for a jerk marinade for this dish so it has a lot
08:39of scallions, chilies.
08:41This is my favorite dish. Here I know where the chicken is coming from. Maybe it's because it's been eating
08:48sourdough and organic vegetables and it's playing around in the zone of Marrakesh. I'm gonna try it.
08:55But I know it's really good.
08:59Delicious. The chicken, it melts like butter, which is very hard to have this technique.
09:10I wish there was more chefs around with the consciousness of sustainability. Everything is so
09:18fast right now so we need to switch gears and pivot into something more intentional rooted in nature so
09:26we can continue in the long term to have this beautiful food that the earth provides for us.
09:31For me food is storytelling. It's hundreds of years in the making in one dish and it's always been a
09:37way
09:38of a culture to express itself to maybe another culture. I am Mexican and I'm here trying the
09:44Moroccan food and I'm learning about the story of it and I think it's so beautiful that food has always
09:49been
09:49about connection. That was all for today. I hope you like the places that I showed you and it was
09:56such an
09:57honor for me to be able to showcase the beautiful city that Marrakesh is. But like everything good
10:03there's an end to it. So now I have to say bye to you guys.
