Fes Pastilla Workshop — Make the City's Legendary Pie

Bastilla (pastilla) is the crown of Fassi cuisine and, many argue, of Moroccan cooking altogether. It is a large, round pie of dozens of layers of warqa — the near-transparent pastry unique to Morocco — wrapped around a filling of slow-cooked poultry and eggs, an almond and sugar layer, and finished with a snowfall of icing sugar and cinnamon lines. Sweet and savoury in the same bite, it is served at every Fassi wedding and feast.

This workshop takes you through it properly. Traditionally pastilla used pigeon; today chicken is standard, and a seafood version with vermicelli exists too. You learn to braise the poultry with saffron, ginger, onion and herbs until it shreds, to fold beaten egg into the reduced sauce, and to fry and grind the almonds with sugar and orange-blossom water for the sweet layer.

The real skill is the assembly: handling warqa without tearing it, brushing and layering it in a rosette, sealing the pie, and baking or pan-frying it to a shattering crisp. Because warqa is difficult to make at home, the host shows how it is produced on a hot dome and how to substitute filo if you cannot source it, so the recipe survives your journey home.

It is a longer, more involved class than a standard tagine session, and deeply rewarding for keen cooks — you finish by eating a whole pastilla you built yourself, with the cinnamon-dusted top cracked open at the table. Vegetarian versions with mushroom or seven-vegetable fillings can be arranged.