Eating & Drinking
The Ruined Garden is a hidden courtyard restaurant in the old medina, set in the ruins of a courtyard house. It serves street-food-inspired dishes, daily Moroccan cooking, fresh juices and delicious pastries.
Dar Hatim is a family-run restaurant inside the Hatim family home in the medina. Good for proper Fassi home cooking: pastilla, lamb m’hamer, couscous, tagines. This is the kind of place that feels more like being invited into someone’s house than going to a restaurant. Be sure to eat on the rooftop for the views!
Ishq Restaurant is a newer creative address good for when you want something more inventive fusion dishes than classic tagines and pastilla. It also serves wine, which many medina restaurants do not. Perfect for a special occassion.
Café Restaurant Moulay Idriss is small, warm, traditional-feeling spot on Talaa Kbira. Try it for a simple lunch or dinner with welcoming hospitality.
Café Clock is part café, part cultural hub, with live music, workshops, cooking classes, and modern Moroccan food. Serves camel burger but the real reason to go is the atmosphere and rooftop views!
Achabine soup kitchen is not a restaurant, but probably the most local food experience on the list. Go for makouda potato patties, harira, kefta sandwiches, fried sardines with lemon, and cow’s cheek sandwiches in the smoky market alleys. Best with a local guide or someone who knows the medina.
Seeing & Doing
Get deliberately lost in Fes el-Bali — but with a good local guide for the first morning: Fez’s medina is one of the world’s best-preserved medieval urban centres and a UNESCO World Heritage site, with souks, workshops, religious schools, fountains, and food stalls all woven into daily life. A guide is useful not just for navigation, but for getting into artisan corners you’d otherwise miss. While you’re here be sure to see the Al Attarine Madrasa and Nejjarine Fountain.
Visit Chouara Tannery from a rooftop terrace: Go early, take mint for the smell, and treat it as a craft-and-labor experience rather than just a photo stop. The tannery is still known for traditional stone vats, leather curing, drying hides, and natural dyes.
Do an artisan workshop: Fez is a craft city, so try a hands-on pottery, zellige, leather, brass, or bookbinding workshop. Current local offerings include pottery and mosaic sessions where you make or paint your own piece, and leather workshops where visitors can learn the steps of leatherwork and make something small. I recommend Art d’Argile / Artargile for pottery and zellij workshops, Craft Draft for brass engraving or book binding and the Fes leather workshop.
While you’re in a creative mood Nejjarine Museum of Wooden Arts & Crafts is perfect for understanding the cedar carving, doors, screens, and domestic architecture you’ll see throughout the city. It is also a nice pause from the intensity of the souks.
For architecture admiring be sure to see Bou Inania Madrasa which is one of the most beautiful historic sites in Fez, with carved cedar, zellij tilework, stucco, and a serene courtyard. It is one of the best places to really study Fassi craft up close.
Spend golden hour at the Merenid Tombs. Go for the view rather than the ruins themselves as they are currently under restoration. It is one of the best panoramas over the medina, especially around sunset, when you can hear the city shift toward evening.
A traditional hammam is one of the most local things to do in Morocco. Hammam Mernissi & Spa is perfect for a classic experience, Spa Laaroussa — Riad Laaroussa or Les Bains Amani — Palais Amani for a more elegant and romantic experience.
Visit Sefrou and Bhalil for a gentle, less-touristed excursion from Fez. Sefrou has an old Jewish quarter, waterfalls, and a mellower medina; Bhalil is known for cave houses. Good if you want a break from Fez’s intensity.
Volubilis + Moulay Idriss Zerhoun + Meknes are more classic, but still excellent if you like Roman ruins and imperial-city history. Volubilis gives you the ancient Roman layer; Moulay Idriss has a sacred hill-town atmosphere; Meknes adds monumental gates and imperial architecture.
Where to Stay
Dar Seffarine is a very old house in the ancient medina, restored into a guesthouse. Best for: architecture lovers, writers, design people, old Fez atmosphere. Located in a deeper medina location, so arrival logistics matter.
Riad Laaroussa is a beautiful, polished, but still soulful choice in the medina. It is an elegant 17th-century palace with spacious rooms around a courtyard with orange trees, plus terrace, pool/garden feeling, hammam, and spa. Best for: romantic stay, hammam, courtyard life, comfort without feeling like a big hotel.
Le Jardin des Biehn is ideal for a more bohemian, collector’s-house feeling: garden, antiques, textiles, and Fez Café on site. A garden oasis in the medina with unique suites filled with collected objects and textiles.
Karawan Riad is a high-style boutique riad in the Andalusian quarter, with only a handful of suites and a more curated, intimate atmosphere. A 17th-century building in a quiet but accessible corner of the medina, with seven suites. If you are looking for quiet luxury this is the spot.
My airbnb recommendations: DAR 47: medina house with breakfast included, Dar Lmrama Guest House Fes Medina.