Well, if there’s anything on the eat list in Marrakech, it has to be the local authentic Méchoui, which is a whole sheep or lamb either spit roasted on a BBQ or slow slow cooked underground in these giant kilns that look like tandoori ovens. An anchor dish in North Africa, the name of dish comes from the Arabic word šawa which means grilled/roasted.
There’s a méchoui alley that’s recommended all over blogs and magazines, but the one we went too was in the outskirts where construction workers and locals go buy their meats from the butcher – so local it didn’t have an address and I forgot the name after trying to create a Foursquare check-in!
So at the back there’s this little corner of a what looks like a construction site, but it’s really the ovens of where they put the whole carcass of sheep/lamb to slow cook for 36 hours. The whole lamb is then transported to restaurants around Marrakech. This is kind of the méchoui wholesaler if you’d like.
How we found this place? The husband used to work in Marrakech and his local Marrachi colleagues took him here – of course we have to trust a local chef to know the best places in town to eat. :)
Home made bread and minced beef for falafel burger things.
Everything is sold by weight and our meal for our party of 5 persons was about 25 euros in total. The butcher chops up the meat with an axe and then puts it on an old school weighing scale.
This local spot is almost impossible to find, but thanks to the husband’s friend, here’s a google map to guide you there! Well worth the trip!