Cheap Eats in Chefchaouen — Budget Food in the Blue City

The cheapest and most characteristic meal in Chefchaouen is a bowl of bissara with fresh bread — thick fava-bean soup finished with olive oil, cumin and paprika — for just a few dirhams around Plaza Uta el-Hammam. Warming and filling, it suits the cool mountain climate and makes a perfect budget breakfast or lunch. Harira soup is a similarly cheap and hearty option.

Beyond soup, the town's small family-run restaurants serve honest, well-priced Moroccan food: vegetable and chicken tagines, kefta with egg, and simple grills, often for less than in the big tourist cities. A tagine to share with bread, or a plate of the day, keeps costs low. Sandwich counters stuff baguettes with kefta, egg or the local cheese for 15-35 MAD, and griddle breads and sfenj doughnuts make cheap snacks.

The market is the place for a budget picnic: fresh bread, the region's goat cheese, mountain honey, olives, and Rif-grown vegetables and fruit for very little. The cheese-and-honey combination alone makes a cheap, distinctive local snack you can eat on a terrace overlooking the blue lanes. Being a small town, Chefchaouen generally has lower prices than Fes or Marrakech.

To eat cheaply, base yourself on bissara and the family-run tagine restaurants, and use the market for picnics and local cheese. Look for the places full of locals rather than the most photogenic tourist terraces, and the blue city will feed you simply and well for very little.