The Top 10 Brunch Spots In Casablanca, Morocco

A relatively new addition to Casablanca’s café scene, Bondi Coffee Kitchen is an Australian-inspired place serving fantastic breakfasts and punch-packing lunches. However you like to eat in the mornings, Bondi has got you covered; there’s everything from home-made muesli to avocado on toast and teetering piles of maple-syrupy pancakes. For lunch, try the Thai chicken salad or, if that sounds a little light, a veritable slab of spinach and ricotta lasagne. The coffee is excellent too. In fact, Bondi Coffee Kitchen boasts the first and still the only La Marzocco espresso machine in Casablanca.

Situated in the eponymous sqala, an 18th-century fortress now painted bright yellow, La Sqala serves traditional Moroccan food. Unlike most other cafés in Casablanca, it offers a dedicated brunch menu between 8am and 12pm. Go there with friends or a healthy appetite or both, so you get a chance to sample all of the delicious flat breads that are available. Try baghir (dimpled and tangy), msemen (rich and chewy), harcha (spongy and best with jam or honey) and sfinge (little rings of fried dough). The brunch menu also features a handful of tagines, in case you’re a savory-all-the-way sort of person.

Khos is the place to go if you’re looking for a brunch that’s healthy and substantial. The owners make a real effort to source fresh, organic ingredients and combine them creatively. The menu changes daily, but freshly squeezed juices, home-made soups and hearty salads are always available. Photos of fruits and vegetables adorn the walls of the intimate dining room. The atmosphere is great, the staff are friendly and enthusiastic and the prices are more than reasonable. In short: a must-visit.

Café Frederic Cassel is a chic, sit-in patisserie on palm-lined Boulevard Moulay Rachid. Stroll through the glass doors and you’ll find staff in crisp white uniforms awaiting you behind crisp white counters. Frederic Cassel does excellent continental breakfasts, all freshly-baked bread and freshly squeezed juice, but it’s on the cake front that this place really excels. There are brightly colored macaroons, intricate swirls of meringue and cream cakes with whole plums and strawberries nestled in their cross sections. Plus, there’s a lovely outdoor seating area where you can people-watch in true Parisian style.

Situated in the heart of the city, the Marché Central is small by the standards of Moroccan markets, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in character. Incongruously, the three main things you’ll find here are flowers, fruit and seafood. Dozens of tiny restaurants run round the market’s edge, selling fried or lightly battered portions of super-fresh fish. Here, you’ll eat shoulder-to-shoulder with local stall-owners and city types. Then go and wash your hands in the old mosaic-covered public fountain at the head of the market, just as the Casablancans do.

Amoud was one of Casablanca’s first patisseries and is still one of its best. Staff are friendly, efficient and really know their stuff; a good thing too, since choosing from the huge range of cakes and pastries is no easy task. There are delicate gateaux, impossibly rich eclairs and the best croissants this side of France; which, in a former French colony, is still saying something. There are some good savory options too, such as the light and airy olive focaccia.

Snack Amine is a lively joint specializing in seafood. Everything on offer is as fresh as can be; the vast majority of it will have been caught on the same day it’s cooked, and costs a fraction of what it would in other places around town. Dishes are clean and unostentatious; little prawns in a rich, spicy sauce being about as fancy as it gets. Everything else is grilled or lightly fried and served with olives, salads and pickles.

Café Bianca in Casablanca is situated a stone’s throw from Casablanca’s stretch of beach, the Plage Lalla Meryem, and its large, shady terrace commands excellent views of the sea. Its breakfasts are superb; the café serves up tasty Italian fare in the afternoons and evenings, but keeps things traditional in the morning. There’s baghir and msemen, delicate pastries and fluffy omelettes, as well as all the mint tea and fresh juice you could want.

A bright white wedge on the corner of two quiet streets, Ifrane is worth tracking down. The staff are smiley and welcoming and the place is always full of locals. On the menu are tagines (the fish one comes highly recommended), soups, pastas and pizzas, but the thing to get is the kefta kebab. Made from minced lamb and Moroccan spices, kefta is one of the country’s most popular street foods and is typically served stuffed into a hunk of bread with pickled chillies, zingy salad and loads of herbs.

Hidden away near the southern edge of the old town, Patisserie Bennis Habous is little more than a closet, albeit one with beautifully tiled walls. Step through the door and you’ll be surrounded on three sides by shelves of the most delicious little cookies and cakes, all freshly baked and authentically Moroccan. There are dates stuffed with pistachio cream, fruit-filled pastry cigars and a whole lot more. If you’re lucky, there might even be some briouat:puff pastry triangles containing meat mixed with lemon and pepper.