Cafe Arabe

Escape from Tajine and Couscous

The Cafe Arabe is the sort of place you will find in the guidebooks and so almost by definition it's not the sort of place to which we'd normally go. However it was so close to our riad that we couldn't help but be tempted. The fact that they had alcohol - and my sister and her girlfriend seemed to be at risk of withdrawal symptoms - was the deciding factor in them booking us a table on our second night in the Mouassine district of Marrakech. We knew it wasn't going to be cheap but the reviews we'd seen were very positive and a combination of booze and proximity sealed the deal. We were also sick of the standard Moroccan fare of couscous and tajine and on the hunt for something less bland.

Ciao Bella!

The restaurant is nominally Italian but not overtly so. The usual Italian restaurant cliches (I'm thinking waiters in over-tight trousers wielding over-sized pepper grinders) are absent - thankfully.The owners are Italian but the menu could fairly be described as international – you can eat Moroccan if you want to but quite honestly it would be a bit pointless when you can get those dishes everywhere in the city. There are plenty of pasta dishes to choose from as well as lots of hard to place on a map 'meat and veg' type dishes. We had checked the menu and knew it was not going to be cheap night out but the setting was so lovely that thought it was worth pushing the boat out. The days when Marrakech was a bargain break destination are fading fast and there are now increasing numbers of dining establishments to part the traveller from the cash they've saved by flying out on easyJet or Ryanair.

Choose your Atmosphere

The ground floor has a pretty terrace with tables set amongst the fruit-bearing orange trees. The next floor up has a swanky looking and dimly lit dining room with deep red lighting and a very cool vibe. However we were aiming for the top (aren't we always?) and had reserved a table on the roof terrace. I'd fallen down a hole in the ramparts at Essaouira the day before and had an ankle that looked like I'd borrowed it from an elephant but even so I sprung up the stairs to get to our allocated place.

Arriving at 8 pm the sun was setting in the distance and we had a great view across the rooftops towards the Koutoubia mosque. My sister Aileen identified that it was an even better view once the sun had actually gone and all the scruffy rooftops and satellite dishes were hidden by the darkness whilst the minaret was attractively floodlit. We could look down on the ground floor orange trees and the diners below.

Our table wasn't really a table – it was more a case of 'our sofas' and 'our round coffee table'. It did look like it would be more at home in a nightclub than a restaurant but it scored well on novelty value. At the table next two us an irritating older man shouted into his mobile phone whilst his cute younger male companion tapped away on his Blackberry – and they say that romance is dead! We were happy when the waiter had to move them on to make way for three young women amusingly dressed in ludicrous flowery maxi-dresses which might be the height of fashion but don't half look stupid.

No formal dining can be possible when you've been seated at two big curved grey rattan sofas. You can't really lean back too far and eating off a table that's at the same height as the seating is a bit too much like having dinner on the sofa in front of the telly at home. But the lighting was atmospheric, the glass table was very funky with encased patterns trapped inside the glass which made someone comment that they expected to find a goldfish if they looked hard enough and the music was almost loud enough for us to ignore Mr Big and his mobile phone. I did giggle when they stopped the music for the call to prayer since I figured that Allah probably likes Coldplay as little as I do. The music was relaxed, multi-country and multi-era with plenty of old Bob Marley songs creeping in amongst the 80s and 90s classics. Any Italian that doesn't play 'Volare' at least once every hour can be defined as 'classy'.

Eating and Drinking

We ordered beers whilst we looked at the menus and the waiter brought over olives, bread-sticks and a bowl of warm nuts. I fear my exclamation of "Ooh, nice nuts" and my sister's giggle attack and the waiter's embarrassed confusion will be going into family folk lore and be brought out on many occasions.

Knowing that the prices are steep, we decided to share starters. Aileen and Joyce ordered bruschetta and Tony and I ordered mixed Moroccan salads. Each was around the £7-8 mark. For main courses Aileen and I ordered pasta dishes (Penne Arabbiata and Fusilli with tuna, capers and olives) whilst Joyce ordered lamb with creamed potatoes and Tony had chicken scallopine with chips even though he wasn't entirely sure what scallopine meant. Tony and I stuck to beer and Joyce and Aileen ordered a bottle of Moroccan Syrah.

The starters were generous and we'd been wise to share. The bruschetta came with three slices of bread but Aileen was a bit disappointed that it was mostly cubed tomato and what she described as 'cheap Danish mozzarella'. I'm not too sure what cheese is doing on a bruschetta to start with, no matter what its national origins, but it did seem weird that the cheapie restaurant round the corner could run to real mozzarella for it's Caprese salad but not the allegedly authentically posh Italian place.

Our salads were fabulous with a large square plate piled high with a mix of different delights including sliced beef tomatoes, minced black olives, marinated broad beans, aubergine dip, cubed beetroot that looked a bit like school dinner beetroot, and roasted red peppers. Out of keeping with the rest of the restaurants we visited in Morocco, the bread provided was French-style baguette rather than soft puffy flat bread.

All of the main courses were served a bit on the cold side. I had a forkful of Joyce's creamed potato and would probably have sent it back if I'd been her. Tony said his chicken wasn't overly warm either and suggested that it had probably been brought all the way up from the ground floor kitchen and cooled on the way. I can't help but think that restaurants solved problems like this many years ago (heat the plates – easy peasy) and they should have known better. My penne Arabiatta was nowhere close to spicy enough to be worthy of the name and the large quantity didn't really make up for the lack of oomph in the sauce. Half way through the dish I'd really had enough and only greed (and the price) got me through the dish. Joyce's lamb portion was enormous. I can't say too much since I don't eat meat and don't understand the cuts but there looked to be about 3 little chops as well as a big chunk of meat. Tony's chicken by contrast was a bit on the mean side although they compensated with a pile of chips of Atlas mountain-like proportions.

The Casablanca beers were served good and cold and fortunately we were left to pour them ourselves. Most Moroccan waiting staff seem to have learned their beer pouring skills at the Amsterdam school of 'big heads' and it's frustrating to have to wait 10 minutes for the froth to settle before you can drink. The Syrah was apparently pretty good and rather smooth but I'm not a red wine drinker. We'd considered getting a bottle of white but been scared off by the really poor white we'd had at our first riad earlier in the week.

The Damage? And my recommendation

The bill for the four of us for two starters, four main courses, six beers and a bottle of red came to 1060 Dirhams which we rounded up to 1200 with tip after checking that none had been added. 1250 Dirhams is approximately £100 so it was a tad under that. I wouldn't consider that overly expensive in the UK but for Morocco I thought it was very expensive and since the quality of the food wasn't great the cost could only be justified by the atmosphere, the view and the very pleasant service. It was certainly a couple of notches better than the average plastic laminated menus and plastic garden furniture establishments we'd eaten in elsewhere. If you want a classy modern restaurant that feels rather special and doesn't play up the whole Moroccan tradition, Cafe Arabe is pretty good but if you're choosing it out of desperation for booze, be warned that the alcohol adds a lot to the bill.