After a day in the Fez Medina, being lead while getting lost in the maze of stores and stalls, passing donkey’s wearing diapers and people smiling and trying to catch your eye, we ended the day with a quiet sunset stroll to this amazing restaurant and riad, La Maison Bleue.
The area past the door opened into a cavernous inner courtyard at least 4 stories tall. Ornate rugs and lanterns gave the room an ancient, exotic look and feel. A dreadlocked singer sat next to a Berber musician and they sang as we entered and never stopped.
The appetizers were all local vegetables and treated like a swatch of fabric of colors and tastes. My favorite was the fava bean but everything in the half-dozen dishes was delicious. The traditional meal of chicken and meat were spiced perfectly, with cumin and coriander and cinnamon.
The service was so good it was almost invisible. We were with a group of eight Americans, like us. The traditional round table afforded open conversation and easy access to all the shared platters — and yes, everything was shared.
If there were one restaurant I would want to go back to, one place to taste the food, the air, the music, the culture, it would be here.
Like so many great meals, the experience went beyond the food; while the air was colored with this crude, repetitive music, at the end of our meal they got up — one gaunt and easily 6′ 3″ –and while he played this mandolin-like instrument, the shorter man danced and used his finger cymbals over and over, faster and faster, until he was in a frenzy, then simply stopped. I asked Jahlil, our guide, what the song was about. He told me it was an ancient song of the slave trade and the loss of family from the village. The Berber musicians were proud of their tradition, and guided us into the night with more music.
Outspoken Traveler 
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