Best Breakfast in Ouarzazate — Dates, Bread and Desert Mornings

Breakfast in Ouarzazate has the honest simplicity of the Moroccan south. The classic spread is griddle breads — msemmen and harcha — with honey, jam, soft cheese and olive oil, alongside the region's excellent dates from the nearby Draa Valley and Skoura oasis, which are a natural sweet accompaniment. Almonds and amlou-style nut spreads appear too, and everything is washed down with plenty of sweet mint tea.

Guesthouses and kasbah-hotels serve breakfast on terraces and in courtyards, often with a view over the palm groves, kasbahs and the pre-Saharan landscape — a memorable, atmospheric start to a day heading toward the dunes or Aït Benhaddou. These breakfasts are usually included with a stay and make the most of the local produce, especially the dates. For a cheaper, more local morning, the town's cafés and market stalls serve sfenj doughnuts, bissara soup and coffee.

As a desert-gateway town, Ouarzazate keeps things practical: a filling breakfast of bread, dates, eggs and tea sets travellers up for long drives through the mountains and oases. The coffee is the national café style — a nous-nous (half coffee, half milk) is the order to know — and mint tea, poured sweet and hot, is ever-present.

Make room for the local dates — fresh and superb at the source — and enjoy the simplicity. Whether on a kasbah-hotel terrace with a desert view or at a market café with sfenj and coffee, a Ouarzazate breakfast is honest, southern and a fine way to begin a day in the Moroccan south.