La Grande Table Marocaine // Marrakech, Morocco

La Grande Table Marocaine at the Royal Mansour is a prestigious restaurant known for its authentic Moroccan cuisine served in a luxurious setting. It aims to expand Moroccan fine dining beyond the ubiquitous cooked salads, tagines, and couscous you can find anywhere, and seems to have succeeded, as it was rated The Best Restaurant in Morocco in 2023, and is 27 on the MENA 50 Best Restaurants List.

However, we found this restaurant not only not the best in Morocco, but a bit of a letdown. The flavors presented here, when compared to more local food, are significantly subdued, presumably to appeal to western palates that have not been bombarded with the spices of traditional cooking. So perhaps if we hadn’t eaten local Moroccan food for 12 days straight we might have enjoyed this dinner more.

If you’re interested in staying at the Royal Mansour, you can book it here, or directly online (here are their special offers).

Ambience

This restaurant is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. The whole hotel is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen (M claims it is THE most beautiful). The current king of Morocco had it built with no budget, only the goal to be the best hotel in the world, and it shows. The craftsmanship, the ambience, the staff are all the best of the best.

There was also a man playing a Moroccan guitar, or oud, and occassionally singing, which added beautifully to the ambience.

The Menu

The menu was beautifully presented, with red embossing on the front, and is, as you would expect, very Moroccan. The tasting menu sounded delicious, but I had read it was too much food and we weren’t feeling like doing a full tasting this particular evening. So we ordered a la carte.

The drinks menu is on an iPad, but is not very aesthetic.

After we ordered, we performed a hand washing ritual, which is very traditional in Morocco. Not only do they traditionally wash their hands in a basin at the table before eating, but Islams also perform ablution (or cleansing themselves) before praying every day.

Drinks

Espresso Martini

Oof, this was bad. I took one sip and didn’t drink another, which says a LOT about a drink. The foam was quite thick and didn’t enhance the drink, though it might have been cultural because they like their foam here. But the coffee in the drink was just not good. Somewhere between stale and flavorless dirt water. My poor husband finished the drink, but this was easily the worst espresso martini I ever tried. (8/20)

Peach Bellini

My bellini was fine. It was beautiful, but served in a glass that felt plastic? My most recent comparison is agains the Bellini I had on the British Pullman Train which was far superior due to better fruit juice and better Prosecco. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, as Morocco is not really an alcohol-consuming nation. But still. (12/20)

Amuse-bouches

Fava Bean Soup

This was delicious. It was very similar to a split pea and broad bean soup we made for our Moroccan cooking class, and it was every bit as creamy, flavorful, and rich as one would expect from a soup of this consistency. And the olive oil on top was nice. (16/20)

Bread with frozen date and ginger butter

This bread was served cold, but definitely plated like it should be hot. And the butter was literally frozen, which made spreading it on cold bread quite difficult. The butter was interestingly flavored, but until it melted, it was just eating butter on mediocre bread. (10/20)

Food

Chicken Pastilla

The service here (discussed more below) was very good, in that they would show us the dish, then divide it for us, as we were sharing. I love when they do this well.

However, the chicken pastilla was hot and cold in various places, and I badly burned my mouth on my first large bite after testing some other chicken that was slightly cooler than room temp. The top was beautifully crispy and covered in almond slivers, but the bottom filo dough was slightly raw. It was served with some diced pear, which was refreshing, but kind of random.

While still very tasty (it is chicken pastilla after all), it was probably the worst chicken pastilla we had (out of 3), though again, this might have been due to the subdued flavors. (12/20)

Cumin Bread

The breads came in three flavors: cumin, plain, and olive. They looked enticing and I could really taste the flavors of each, but the bread itself was just okay. We have only been impressed by bread in Morocco once (at Plus61, where the focaccia was heavenly), and this meal was not it. It was also served at room temp/cold. (11/20)

Mechoui Lamb Shoulder

Another very, very classic Moroccan dish, we were told this was excellent, and indeed, the dish delivered. It is served with a couscous covered in XX (caramelized onions and raisins), chickpeas, and carrots, and drenched in a sauce that made it the best couscous we had in Morocco.

The lamb came bone in, then they divided it up for us, and it was quite a lot for 2 people (probably about 8oz for each of us). We were absolutely stuffed after this and realized we definitely did not also need the pastilla starter.

The lamb tasted surprisingly high-quality — it had all the indications of being lamb without the gaminess and smell I don’t like about it. They shared with us a specific region in Morocco they source from which has the best lamb and I have to agree, it was a fantastic cut of meat. However, it was also very under-seasoned for our now maladjusted palates, so they gave us cumin and salt, and adding that went a long way. They also saw us adding many spices and offered us harissa (hot sauce from grinding pepper), which was very, very hot, but absolutely delicious.

The whole dish (once we added our own seasoning) was quite delicious. (15/20)

Service

The service was very, very good, but not perfect. If I were to nitpick, they did a few things like not removing our wine glasses after we ordered cocktails and declined wine, and not removing our butter dish until well after we had finished the butter.

But they came by throughout our meal and present various bits of information on our meal. They also wiped the table fully, replaced cutlery, gave me a new napkin when I went to the bathroom (as opposed to just folding it), and even placed dishes that they then took back to split so I could take videos. They also walked me to the bathroom, and asked if I wanted photos taken. It was lovely.

All the servers also dressed in beautiful, baby blue traditional garb, and all the men were clean-shaven. There were a lot of servers, relative to diners, but they managed not to hover and also didn’t rush us at the end of our meal. Overall, very, very good, and by far the best service we had in Morocco.

Bathroom

The bathroom was nice, as expected, but not extraordinary. They did have some nice lotion, and the bathroom stall had a coat hanger and ledge for your purse, which were nice touches.

Final Thoughts

Someone on TripAdvisor left a review that called their meal here the worst they had in Morocco. While I don’t quite agree with this, I can definitely say if you come here for the food alone, you will likely leave disappointed. A tajine here runs $50+, while on the street they are no more than $8, maaaaaybe $11, and you can often get them for closer to $4 or $5, even in the most touristy of places. Even the water, which was an expected $9/1L, was the same water we’d been drinking for $0.60/1.5L, it was just packaged differently, in a nicer, glass, “hospitality version.”

That said, the package deal of experiencing the Royal Mansour — enjoying the lobby, shopping the boutique, walking the grounds, seeing the spa — and enjoying the unparalleled ambience of the restaurant is hard to put a price on. But there are definitely cheaper ways to experience the Royal Mansour.

They have 2 bars (one inside and one outside), and 3 other restaurants (La Grande Brasserie, Sesamo, and Le Jardin), all of which are (much) cheaper than La Grand Table Marocaine. We also could have walked out of the restaurant for less (eg. just ordering the lamb shoulder with no drinks or starters, which would have left us completely full), but still. They also have spa day passes, though they’re not cheap.

**Note: No professional cameras are allowed in the hotel, so we could only use our phones.

We paid 2,340 MAD, or $228.84, which is a LOT in Morocco (90% of our meals were well under $30), but less than what two tastings + drinks would have cost (closer to 3,800 MAD). To conclude, I’d say food was 13/20, ambience was 20/20, service was 18/20, and value for money was 10/20.