Best Tagine in Meknes — Imperial City Cooking

Meknes shares the refined culinary heritage of the imperial cities, and its tagines make full use of the region's signature produce. The classic chicken tagine with preserved lemon and green olives is especially at home here, in the olive capital of Morocco, where both the olives and the preserved lemons come from the surrounding countryside. Lamb with prunes and almonds, kefta with egg, and vegetable tagines over a saffron-onion base round out the medina menus.

The local olive oil — green, peppery and freshly pressed nearby — enriches the cooking, and the abundance of top-quality olives means the olive-and-preserved-lemon tagines are as good as anywhere in Morocco. Being close to Fes, Meknes shares some of that city's refined touch, but its food scene is more workaday and local, which often means more honest, better-value cooking without the tourist premium.

The medina and the grand El Hedim square — a smaller, calmer cousin of Marrakech's Jemaa el-Fna, lined with cafés and food stalls — are the places to eat. Small canteens and traditional restaurants serve slow-cooked tagines at lunch, with the reduced, glossy sauce that marks a good one, to a crowd that is mostly Meknassi rather than tourist. That local focus is Meknes's dining strength: real food at real prices.

Order the chicken-olive-and-preserved-lemon tagine to taste the region's produce at its best, share it with bread, and eat at lunch when the pots are freshest. In the small local restaurants of the medina, you will eat imperial-city tagine without the imperial-city crowds.