Best Tagine in Ouarzazate — Tagine at the Gate of the Desert

Ouarzazate — long known as the 'door of the desert' — sits where the High Atlas meets the pre-Sahara, surrounded by palm-filled oases and kasbahs. Its tagines reflect this southern, Berber setting: hearty lamb and chicken tagines, often enriched with the dates, almonds, prunes and apricots that grow in the nearby Draa Valley and Skoura oasis. Lamb tagine with prunes and almonds is especially at home here, sweet and rich, a fitting meal after a day on the desert roads.

The cooking is more rustic and less refined than the court cuisines of Fes or Marrakech, in keeping with the region's Amazigh (Berber) traditions. Vegetable tagines make good use of the oasis produce, and you will find simple, slow-cooked meat tagines built for sustenance rather than show. The area's dates — the Draa Valley is one of Morocco's great date-growing regions — turn up both in tagines and as a sweet accompaniment.

Ouarzazate is a stopover town for travellers heading to the dunes, the Draa Valley, or the famous kasbah of Aït Benhaddou nearby, and its restaurants — along the main road and in the guesthouses and kasbah-hotels — serve tagines to a mix of locals and road-trippers. The kasbah-hotels in particular often do excellent, atmospheric versions in traditional settings. As everywhere, a slow-cooked lunch tagine is at its best.

Order a lamb-with-prunes tagine for the sweet, southern style, or a vegetable tagine for the oasis produce, and share it with bread. In this desert-gateway town, tagine is honest, warming road food — the taste of the Moroccan south.