Best Seafood in Essaouira — Beyond the Port Grills

While the port grills are the headline, Essaouira's seafood runs deeper. The whitewashed medina, ringed by 18th-century ramparts, is full of small restaurants serving the day's Atlantic catch cooked Moroccan-style: fish tagine simmered with chermoula, tomatoes, peppers and preserved lemon over sliced potato; calamari in a garlicky tomato sauce; and platters of fried and grilled fish. Seafood pastilla — the savoury pie of fish, shellfish and vermicelli in crisp warqa pastry — is a local favourite worth trying.

The town's Atlantic setting means the fish is exceptionally fresh and varied: sea bream, sole, sardines, whiting, prawns, spider crab, and in season sea urchins and oysters. Chermoula, the Moroccan marinade of coriander, garlic, cumin, paprika and lemon, is the flavour that defines the local fish cooking, whether brushed on grills or forming the base of a tagine. Salads of tomato and onion, plates of olives, and fresh bread accompany almost everything.

Around Place Moulay Hassan, the main square just inside the ramparts, and along the medina's lanes, you will find everything from cheap workers' fish canteens to smarter restaurants and rooftop terraces overlooking the harbour and the sea. The constant Atlantic wind that makes Essaouira a windsurfing capital also keeps the town cool, so seafood lunches here are comfortable even in summer.

To eat best, follow the freshness: order the day's catch, favour the simply cooked dishes that let the fish speak, and don't miss the seafood pastilla for something more elaborate. Whether at a port grill, a medina canteen or a rooftop, Essaouira makes the most of its ocean.