A Review of La Grande Table Marocaine: The “Best Restaurant” in Morocco
La Grande Table Marocaine is considered the best restaurant in Morocco, having been given special recognition by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, and won World’s Luxury Restaurant Awards in 2016 and 2017. After our dining experience during February 2019, I can assure you it is extremely overrated, just like you’ll find for much of the rest of Marrakech.
A little background for those of you that may not know me: I am a fine-dining fiend. My husband and I have been to 16 of the 22 Michelin starred restaurants in our hometown of Chicago, and when traveling abroad, I will spend hours researching iconic or must-eat restaurants to visit during our trip – both high-end and no-frills.
When we decided to spend one night in Marrakech (having spent most of the month living in Casablanca), I knew I wanted to experience the luxury that the tourist capital of Morocco was purported to offer, including eating at the best restaurant in the country. I had done some research ahead of time and knew that the Royal Mansour had three different restaurants, the best of which was La Grande Table Marocaine. Overseen by three-Michelin-star French chef, Yannick Alléno, it offers two tasting menus: one for 1,500/pp dirham ($150) and one for 2,200/pp dirham ($220). They also offer an a la carte menu with appetizers from 250 – 900 dirham ($25-$90) and entrees from 500 – 3900 ($50 – $390). Garan was shocked by these prices — this would be considered expensive even in Chicago — but I insisted we had to go, it was a THREE Michelin star chef!
The night started off strong, we dressed up and walked to The Royal Mansour, a luxury hotel that offers the quintessential Instagram-worthy photos. It is drop-dead gorgeous. Every wall and floor is elaborately decorated — the bathroom stalls are even fancy. We arrived about an hour early for our dinner reservation so we could enjoy a cocktail in one of their many bars.
Although slightly put off by the steep prices of the cocktails (about $25 per drink), we just tried to take it all in and enjoy the experience. The drinks were tasty and creative, so it was a promising start.
Soon it was time for our dinner reservation and we were personally escorted to a separate building that houses La Grande Table Marocaine. After being seated, we were offered warm water and towels to rinse our hands. The service was on point. But little did we know, it was all downhill from there.
After much contemplation, we opted not to do a tasting menu. The tasting menus are composed of dishes that are also offered on the a la carte menu and, given the price point, we figured we could try to save some money by choosing our own dishes.
We ordered:
Harira Soup 250 dirham ($25) – a traditional tomato, lentil, chickpea soup
Select Briouate 450 dirham ($45) – Stuffed flaky pastry dough: spinach and cheese, prawns, chicken with honey and almonds, and lamb
Sea Bream Tagine with Purple Olives 700 dirham ($70)
Beef Tongue Tagine 700 dirham ($70)
1 bottle of Baccari Moroccan Red Wine: 700 dirham ($70)
1 bottle of water 90 dirham ($9)
The dinner started off with some complimentary bites — normally the bread course is my favorite course (Garan could probably save himself a lot of money if he just took me to a bakery for dinner every once in awhile). However, as adorable as this butter pressed into a honeycomb pattern and topped with honey, is, it was also infused with thyme, which I found really off-putting.
Then we were given an amuse-bouche which was pretty bland — although I always do appreciate the idea behind a complimentary bite at the beginning of a meal.
At this point I was starting to get a little nervous — I feel that at high-end restaurants, the purpose of an amuse-bouche is to “wow” you. It is their opportunity to show off, like “you didn’t order this but I am going to give it to you for free because I want you to know that our chef is amazing.”
That said, next up was the Harira soup, which I had at other restaurants in Morocco, and knew it was one of my favorite Morccan dishes, so I was still cautiously optimistic.
The Harira Soup was when the wheels really came off. I was eating a $25 bowl of soup and was feeling disappointed. It seemed to be lacking a lot of things, particularly salt. As a tomato based soup… lacking salt is a real deal-breaker. The $6 large bowl of harira soup I had at Al Mounia Restaurant in Casablanca was twice as good. This soup didn’t have any fancy ingredients or modern twists, just a textbook recipe for traditional harira. What exactly was I paying a massive markup for?
The briouates were an improvement from the harira soup — they were greasy and flaky and crunchy, so I was happy. The spinach/cheese, and the chicken/almond/honey were particularly good. But as Garan pointed out, we were paying FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS for these 12 briouates. This type of pastry is usually 1 dirham each on the street, or 10 cents. Yes, they were arguably better than the average street version, but not 40x better. Again, no “wow factor”.
Next up was the entrees: the beef was served out of a clay pot on hot coals, so the presentation was nice. From the pot came a tender meat.. but just meat. No couscous or vegetables or anything. The meat tasted good… but at this point we were wondering why exactly we were paying $70 for this dish. Again, this was not a creative, elevated take on a traditional dish — it WAS the traditional dish.
The sea bream was just a repeat of the beef disappointment — a tasty fish with olives served over potatoes. Did it taste good? Yes. Would I pay $70 for this dish? No. Would I pay $35 for this dish? Probably no.
The meal ended with some complimentary dessert bites. Again, they tasted good but you can get literally the exact same pastries from traditional bakery for about 10 cents, they were not interesting or exciting.
At this point, I was waiting for them to bring out a complimentary bottle of wine, because that was the only thing that could stop this meal from feeling like a total robbery.
Alas, no complimentary bottle of wine was given, so we ponied up over $300 for a meal that would have been merely decent at a third of the price and left disappointed.
For future Marrakech travelers, go to Royal Mansour for an over-priced cocktail and some gorgeous photos. Don’t waste your money on dinner here. You’ll need that money for all the swindlers in the Jemaa El-Fnaa, anyhow.
If you are traveling to Morocco, see the links below for my less-snarky recommendations!
Well that’s too bad. Yeah the place looks nice. I guess if you hadn’t been there very long like you guys had and not known that some of those foods were dirt cheap in the markets. You wouldn’t know better. I was going to go there but probably won’t now! Thanks for the info!
John
Hey John! Yeah, it was a real, expensive disappointment. The prices were crazy, absolutely nuts. It truly felt like a joke
This one may be my favorite. I loved how real you were. $300??! That’s crazy. Also, it’s really cool how you’ve been to so many Michelin star restaurants. Have you done a blog on those? I love food. The tome you spend researching is awesome. I can’t wait for another post☺️
Haha, thank you, Sue! Yes, $300 was insane. We have spent $300 before on dinner in Chicago but this was just… robbery! Honestly, I can’t believe they get away with this. I need to write about the various Chicago restaurants, I’ve been to so many and need to expand that part of the blog
Hi, did you try or can recommend any other high-in dinning at Marrakech?
Hey Monica! I actually didn’t dine at any other high end places but I checked my notes and these were other places we considered going: Dar Anika in Medina for daytime drink at roofdeck bar, Kosy roofdeck bar for views of medina , Hemingway Bar at La Maison Arabe- Piano Bar, Breakfast/lunch at La Poste Cafe