Asilah Seafood Grill - Fresh Fish by the Ramparts

Asilah's pleasures are simple - white walls, blue sea, painted lanes and superb fresh fish - and its food matches. The town sits on the northern Atlantic where the daily catch comes in, and the local way to enjoy it is a leisurely grill: whole fish and shellfish cooked over coals with almost nothing added, eaten slowly near the ramparts. This experience is exactly that, guided so you eat the best and freshest.

You work through a spread that follows the day's catch - grilled sardines, calamari, prawns, and whole sea bream or sole cooked over coals with chermoula, salt and lemon. Moroccan salads, fresh bread and olives round it out, and your host explains where each fish is landed and how the northern coast's cooking differs from the south, lighter and more Mediterranean in feel thanks to Asilah's Andalusian past.

It is an unhurried, unpretentious meal in a beautiful setting, and a lovely contrast to the intensity of a big-medina food tour. Asilah's compact, flat, mural-covered medina makes the whole afternoon a gentle stroll, suitable for all ages. Bring an appetite and let the Atlantic breeze and the whitewashed lanes set the pace.