La Sqala
Garden brunch inside the old Casablanca ramparts
4.2★4,300 reviews
$$$Price
CasablancaOld Medina
About this restaurant
Hidden inside Casablanca's 18th-century fortifications, La Sqala's garden terrace is a favourite for unhurried Moroccan brunch under old bougainvillea.
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What you'll eat at La Sqala
La Sqala cooks in a European register in Casablanca, which in Morocco pulls from French, Italian, and Mediterranean traditions rather than fitting neatly into one of them. Here is what that typically looks like on the plate.
Morocco's European kitchens trace three distinct lineages. French Morocco, inherited from the Protectorate, runs on bistros and brasseries serving steak frites, duck confit, coquilles Saint-Jacques, plateau de fruits de mer, and a wine list built around French and Moroccan bottles. The best versions in Casablanca and Rabat read like neighbourhood brasseries in Lyon or Paris — short menus, white tablecloths, cheese trolleys, and a maître d'hôtel who actually greets tables.
Italian cooking in Morocco skews Neapolitan for pizza and Roman for pasta. Wood-fired Neapolitan pies with San Marzano tomatoes and fior di latte are a legitimate part of the Moroccan dining map now, especially in Marrakech and Casablanca. Pastas — cacio e pepe, carbonara, gnocchi al pomodoro, seafood linguine — are almost universally handmade in the good places. Italian wine lists and amaros have quietly become part of the upscale Moroccan bar scene as well.
At the fine-dining end, the vocabulary is Mediterranean more than strictly one nation: burrata with local tomatoes, grilled octopus with preserved lemon aioli, lamb with couscous jus, tajine-style braises served in porcelain. The best Moroccan chefs working in this register use the country's ingredients — saffron, argan oil, preserved lemon, sardines, goat, quince — inside a French or Italian technique frame. The tasting menus worth the money do not feel like European cooking imported; they feel like Morocco translated into a second language.