Casablanca's stunning Art Deco buildings could make it the Miami of Morocco. The city has long been overshadowed as a destination by the literary bohemianism of Tangier, the medieval splendours of Fez and the hip exoticism of Marrakech. However, in contrast to the minarets and medieval street patterns of Marrakech and Fez, Casablanca is totally modern. Stroll Mohammed V and cast your gaze upwards for tiers of sensuously sweeping curved balconies, visit the towering Mosque of Hassan II, eat cakes at the stylish Villa Zévaco and make sure you visit the bustling Marché Central.
Always consult the Foreign Office before travelling.
Always consult the Foreign Office before travelling.
WHERE TO STAY
HOTEL LES SAISONS
19 rue El Oraibi Jilali (00 212 2 249 0901; www.hotellessaisonsmaroc.ma). With just 45 rooms, service at this small, recently opened business hotel is a lot more personal than at the neighbouring chain hotels. Inexperience shows in the details (curtains that crease badly, harshly lit bathrooms) but doubles are roomy, with pleasingly large beds. Lean far enough out of the window and you can just about glimpse the sea. Taxi drivers have trouble with the address: tell them it's close to the Royal Mansour, on the same side of the street as Air France. £
HOTEL TRANSATLANTIQUE
79 rue Chaouia (00 212 2 229 4551). The building is a fine piece of 1920s elegance, although many of the public spaces, including the restaurant and reception area, owe more to a gauche 1970s refit. Rooms are serviceable if a little cheaply furnished. Still, it's the kind of place that has character in abundance, even if it's not quite the character that you'd normally wish to be seen out with in public. £
LE ROYAL MANSOUR MERIDIEN
27 avenue de l'Armée Royale (00 212 2 231 3011; www.mansourlemeridien.com). Ostentatious yet charmless, the Royal Mansour does at least boast a prime location just off the main square, place des Nations Unies. The rooms are all spacious and have all the facilities and comforts you'd expect of a hotel of this class. Established in 1952, this is the closest thing to a landmark hotel that the city possesses. £
19 rue El Oraibi Jilali (00 212 2 249 0901; www.hotellessaisonsmaroc.ma). With just 45 rooms, service at this small, recently opened business hotel is a lot more personal than at the neighbouring chain hotels. Inexperience shows in the details (curtains that crease badly, harshly lit bathrooms) but doubles are roomy, with pleasingly large beds. Lean far enough out of the window and you can just about glimpse the sea. Taxi drivers have trouble with the address: tell them it's close to the Royal Mansour, on the same side of the street as Air France. £
HOTEL TRANSATLANTIQUE
79 rue Chaouia (00 212 2 229 4551). The building is a fine piece of 1920s elegance, although many of the public spaces, including the restaurant and reception area, owe more to a gauche 1970s refit. Rooms are serviceable if a little cheaply furnished. Still, it's the kind of place that has character in abundance, even if it's not quite the character that you'd normally wish to be seen out with in public. £
LE ROYAL MANSOUR MERIDIEN
27 avenue de l'Armée Royale (00 212 2 231 3011; www.mansourlemeridien.com). Ostentatious yet charmless, the Royal Mansour does at least boast a prime location just off the main square, place des Nations Unies. The rooms are all spacious and have all the facilities and comforts you'd expect of a hotel of this class. Established in 1952, this is the closest thing to a landmark hotel that the city possesses. £
WHERE TO EAT
LA BODEGA
129 rue Allal Ben Abdallah (00 212 2 254 1842). This is a colourful, Spanish-style tapas bar where red neon on the walls advertises Red Bull and placemats flog Fortuna cigarettes. It's loud and hugely popular. Unbelievably, the volume increases downstairs, where there's a dimly lit basement disco.
LE PETIT ROCHE
Boulevard de la Corniche (00 212 2 236 2626). Out on a promontory a few kilometres west of the city centre, next to the El Hank lighthouse, this is a roomy first-floor lounge bar with lots of low-slung seating arrayed around similarly low-slung brass-topped tables. The restaurant serves tapas, paella and seafood, but this is primarily a drinking and dancing venue. The place also boats the finest views of the Mosque of Hassan II, which is directly opposite across the bay.
LE ROUGET DE L'ISLE
16 rue Rouget de l'Isle (00 212 2 229 4740). Another renovated 1930s villa, although this one feels almost like a museum piece, filled with period furniture and objets d'art. The menu is old-school French, the cooking is terrific and the prices reasonable. The restaurant is on a leafy side street beside the Beaux Arts school; there's no nameplate, just a flight of stairs up to the first-floor entrance. With only 12 tables, reservations are a must.
LE SPHINX
13 rue Mohamed el Qorri (00 212 2 222 2594). Across from the Rialto cinema is this café where waiters in black waistcoats and bow ties serve bottles of Casablanca and glasses of nus nus (half black coffee, half milk) to local businessmen.
MARCHE CENTRAL
Boulevard Mohammed V. On the north side of the market's main hall is a small street with a colonnade full of small fish restaurants. It's all very basic, plastic tablecloths and plastic furniture, but the fish is fresh, served deep-fried in a light batter, heads and tails intact, and accompanied by a plate of chopped onion and tomato. Fellow diners include market traders, shoppers and local office workers. Afterwards, wash your hands in a mosaic-decorated public fountain of considerable age.
PAUL VILLA ZEVACO
Angle boulevard Moulay Rachid et boulevard d'Anfa (00 212 2 236 6000). Zevaco feels completely St Tropez. Girls in Dolce & Gabbana perch on the edge of white-canvas sofas shaded by white-canvas umbrellas while pecking at salads and savoury pastries. There is more substantial fare such as pasta, crepes and a dish of the day. The Paul patisserie on the premises does takeaway snacks. You'll need to get a taxi here.
RICK'S CAFE
248 boulevard Sour Jdid (00 212 2 227 4207; www.rickscafe.ma). The movie memorabilia is kept to a minimum, allowing a beautifully restored 1930s interior to steal all the attention. The focus is an internal courtyard flanked by pointed arches and with lush potted palms in each corner. A filigree lantern hangs from a dome two storeys above. Isaam, the house pianist, happily gives in to requests for 'As Times Goes By' at least twice nightly. The menu leans towards seafood and steaks and also boasts the best burgers in town. Cocktails are served at the long bar at the rear of the restaurant.
SQALA
Boulevard des Almohades, opposite the marina (00 212 2 226 0960). The city has reclaimed a considerable amount of land from the Atlantic, so what was once a seafront fortress is now marooned on the landward side of a four-lane highway. Nevertheless, the bastion makes a fine setting for a garden café and restaurant, with a photography gallery attached. The menu features fresh seafood, fruit juices, coffees and teas. Alcohol is prohibited.
TRICA
5 rue El Moutanabi (00 212 2 222 0706; www.ilove-casablanca.com/trica). The name is just two letters short of the chic New York neighbourhood that is this restaurant-bar's spiritual home. It's a great-looking place with brick walls, a copper-topped bar counter and fairy-lit backshelves. The wine list is superb and the menu includes 40 or more kinds of pasta, augmented by monthly specials.
129 rue Allal Ben Abdallah (00 212 2 254 1842). This is a colourful, Spanish-style tapas bar where red neon on the walls advertises Red Bull and placemats flog Fortuna cigarettes. It's loud and hugely popular. Unbelievably, the volume increases downstairs, where there's a dimly lit basement disco.
LE PETIT ROCHE
Boulevard de la Corniche (00 212 2 236 2626). Out on a promontory a few kilometres west of the city centre, next to the El Hank lighthouse, this is a roomy first-floor lounge bar with lots of low-slung seating arrayed around similarly low-slung brass-topped tables. The restaurant serves tapas, paella and seafood, but this is primarily a drinking and dancing venue. The place also boats the finest views of the Mosque of Hassan II, which is directly opposite across the bay.
LE ROUGET DE L'ISLE
16 rue Rouget de l'Isle (00 212 2 229 4740). Another renovated 1930s villa, although this one feels almost like a museum piece, filled with period furniture and objets d'art. The menu is old-school French, the cooking is terrific and the prices reasonable. The restaurant is on a leafy side street beside the Beaux Arts school; there's no nameplate, just a flight of stairs up to the first-floor entrance. With only 12 tables, reservations are a must.
LE SPHINX
13 rue Mohamed el Qorri (00 212 2 222 2594). Across from the Rialto cinema is this café where waiters in black waistcoats and bow ties serve bottles of Casablanca and glasses of nus nus (half black coffee, half milk) to local businessmen.
MARCHE CENTRAL
Boulevard Mohammed V. On the north side of the market's main hall is a small street with a colonnade full of small fish restaurants. It's all very basic, plastic tablecloths and plastic furniture, but the fish is fresh, served deep-fried in a light batter, heads and tails intact, and accompanied by a plate of chopped onion and tomato. Fellow diners include market traders, shoppers and local office workers. Afterwards, wash your hands in a mosaic-decorated public fountain of considerable age.
PAUL VILLA ZEVACO
Angle boulevard Moulay Rachid et boulevard d'Anfa (00 212 2 236 6000). Zevaco feels completely St Tropez. Girls in Dolce & Gabbana perch on the edge of white-canvas sofas shaded by white-canvas umbrellas while pecking at salads and savoury pastries. There is more substantial fare such as pasta, crepes and a dish of the day. The Paul patisserie on the premises does takeaway snacks. You'll need to get a taxi here.
RICK'S CAFE
248 boulevard Sour Jdid (00 212 2 227 4207; www.rickscafe.ma). The movie memorabilia is kept to a minimum, allowing a beautifully restored 1930s interior to steal all the attention. The focus is an internal courtyard flanked by pointed arches and with lush potted palms in each corner. A filigree lantern hangs from a dome two storeys above. Isaam, the house pianist, happily gives in to requests for 'As Times Goes By' at least twice nightly. The menu leans towards seafood and steaks and also boasts the best burgers in town. Cocktails are served at the long bar at the rear of the restaurant.
SQALA
Boulevard des Almohades, opposite the marina (00 212 2 226 0960). The city has reclaimed a considerable amount of land from the Atlantic, so what was once a seafront fortress is now marooned on the landward side of a four-lane highway. Nevertheless, the bastion makes a fine setting for a garden café and restaurant, with a photography gallery attached. The menu features fresh seafood, fruit juices, coffees and teas. Alcohol is prohibited.
TRICA
5 rue El Moutanabi (00 212 2 222 0706; www.ilove-casablanca.com/trica). The name is just two letters short of the chic New York neighbourhood that is this restaurant-bar's spiritual home. It's a great-looking place with brick walls, a copper-topped bar counter and fairy-lit backshelves. The wine list is superb and the menu includes 40 or more kinds of pasta, augmented by monthly specials.
WHAT TO SEE
ARTE A BEAUTE AU 9
This is a gorgeous two-storey villa, which has been converted into a beauty centre and art gallery, where abstracts of arrows and spirals compete with mirrors for the attentions of pampered Casablancan madams. Owner Said Tlemcani plans to export the concept to New York.
BOULEVARD D'ANFA
This wide, palm-fringed avenue is meant for slow cruising. The side streets around here are rapidly filling with French brand names such as Carré Blanc and children's store Sergent Major. The target market for these high-end boutiques and stores lives out in the western suburbs, notably Anfa, where the cool, clean lines of Deco villas are just visible above the immaculately manicured hedgerows. It is like the Beverly Hills of Morocco, but with better architecture.
CATHEDRALE DU SACRE COEUR
Designed by Paul Tournon in 1930 and bequeathed to the city by the Vatican. Bereft of furnishings, the interior is a soaring, skeletal space with 40 rib-like columns. At present the cathedral serves as a glorified village hall playing host to temporary art exhibitions and craft fairs.
MARCHE CENTRAL
Each day, at the Marche Central, a part of the morning's catch is laid out for sale. In the area around here you'll find landmarks such as the Hotel Transatlantique, built in 1922, and the Rialto cinema, dating from eight years later, which, as well as screening movies, was host to musical stars including Edith Piaf and Josephine Baker.
MOSQUE OF HASSAN II
Completed in 1993 after six years of work by more than 30,000 craftsmen, its proportions are totalitarian. Its 200-metre minaret is the world's tallest and in area only the mosque at Mecca is bigger.
RICK'S CAFE
Until Casablanca gets a recognised 'Art Deco district' of its own, there's that other bit of faux heritage to trade on, so welcome to Rick's Café. Kathy Kriger, a former commercial councillor with the local US consulate, invested in a harbourside property on the edge of the old Medina and turned it into a homage to Casablanca. No matter that Rick's Café never existed and that the whole film was shot in Burbank. The sets were, however, constructed with reference to thousands of photographs taken in Casablanca; Kriger turned to similar source material for help in creating the interiors of her bar-resraurant.
VILLA ZEVACO
Jean-Francois Zevaco was one of Morocco's most progressive architects, practising in Morocco from the late 1940s onwards. He had a thing for giddy angles and a cavalier attitude to gravity. The villa he designed in 1949 has a roof like an elasticated bed sheet stretched at the corners. The villa hit the headlines because its new owners, Mehdi and Leila Bahraoui, had enlisted the help of renowned London restaurateur Oliver Peyton to launch the place as a smart restaurant and bar. Those plans went awry and Peyton pulled out. The catering part of the operation is now managed by Paul, the French patisserie chain. If the food is not as exciting as it might have been, the setting is still wonderful, particularly the wild palm-and cactus-filled garden
This is a gorgeous two-storey villa, which has been converted into a beauty centre and art gallery, where abstracts of arrows and spirals compete with mirrors for the attentions of pampered Casablancan madams. Owner Said Tlemcani plans to export the concept to New York.
BOULEVARD D'ANFA
This wide, palm-fringed avenue is meant for slow cruising. The side streets around here are rapidly filling with French brand names such as Carré Blanc and children's store Sergent Major. The target market for these high-end boutiques and stores lives out in the western suburbs, notably Anfa, where the cool, clean lines of Deco villas are just visible above the immaculately manicured hedgerows. It is like the Beverly Hills of Morocco, but with better architecture.
CATHEDRALE DU SACRE COEUR
Designed by Paul Tournon in 1930 and bequeathed to the city by the Vatican. Bereft of furnishings, the interior is a soaring, skeletal space with 40 rib-like columns. At present the cathedral serves as a glorified village hall playing host to temporary art exhibitions and craft fairs.
MARCHE CENTRAL
Each day, at the Marche Central, a part of the morning's catch is laid out for sale. In the area around here you'll find landmarks such as the Hotel Transatlantique, built in 1922, and the Rialto cinema, dating from eight years later, which, as well as screening movies, was host to musical stars including Edith Piaf and Josephine Baker.
MOSQUE OF HASSAN II
Completed in 1993 after six years of work by more than 30,000 craftsmen, its proportions are totalitarian. Its 200-metre minaret is the world's tallest and in area only the mosque at Mecca is bigger.
RICK'S CAFE
Until Casablanca gets a recognised 'Art Deco district' of its own, there's that other bit of faux heritage to trade on, so welcome to Rick's Café. Kathy Kriger, a former commercial councillor with the local US consulate, invested in a harbourside property on the edge of the old Medina and turned it into a homage to Casablanca. No matter that Rick's Café never existed and that the whole film was shot in Burbank. The sets were, however, constructed with reference to thousands of photographs taken in Casablanca; Kriger turned to similar source material for help in creating the interiors of her bar-resraurant.
VILLA ZEVACO
Jean-Francois Zevaco was one of Morocco's most progressive architects, practising in Morocco from the late 1940s onwards. He had a thing for giddy angles and a cavalier attitude to gravity. The villa he designed in 1949 has a roof like an elasticated bed sheet stretched at the corners. The villa hit the headlines because its new owners, Mehdi and Leila Bahraoui, had enlisted the help of renowned London restaurateur Oliver Peyton to launch the place as a smart restaurant and bar. Those plans went awry and Peyton pulled out. The catering part of the operation is now managed by Paul, the French patisserie chain. If the food is not as exciting as it might have been, the setting is still wonderful, particularly the wild palm-and cactus-filled garden
HOW TO GET THERE
AIRPORT
Mohammed V Airport is 18 miles from Casablanca.
AIRLINES FROM THE UK
British Airways (0870 850 9850; www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow to Casablanca. Royal Air Maroc (020 7439 4361; www.royalairmaroc.com) flies from Heathrow.
Mohammed V Airport is 18 miles from Casablanca.
AIRLINES FROM THE UK
British Airways (0870 850 9850; www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow to Casablanca. Royal Air Maroc (020 7439 4361; www.royalairmaroc.com) flies from Heathrow.
WHEN TO GO
The best time to visit Casablanca is November to May when the sun isn't too hot for walks and sightseeing trips in the city.
TRAVEL INFORMATION
Visas: Most visitors won't need a visa. Travellers are usually issued with a 90-day stamp on arrival.
Public holidays: New Year's Day; Eid ul-Fitr (End of Ramadan); Throne Day (3 March); Eid ul-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice); Islamic New Year; Labour Day; Fête Nationale (23 May); Prophet's Birthday; Youth Day (9 July); Qued-ed-Dahab (14 Aug); Al-Massira (6 Nov); Independence Day (18 Nov).
Good buys: The best place to find beautiful and bargainous items is at the souk. Look out for leather goods, silver jewellery, copper and brassware, rugs and ceramics - and don't be too shy to barter.
Local dishes: Moroccan cuisine is as rich and varied as its culture. Favourites includetajines, dates, olives and nuts, and kefta (seasoned mince lamb).
Funny fact: Half the population of Morocco is under 20. What's more, there are 12 times as many cows as there are human beings.
Good reading: For a sense of the history of the country, check out Medinas: Morocco's Hidden Cities, a collection of images and poems by French photographer Jean-Marie Tingaud and Morocco's foremost author Tahar Ben Jelloun. Walter Harris's account of the years leading up to the French Protectorate, in Morocco That Was, is hard to put down. And Peter Mayne's A Year in Marrakech is an entertaining read, inspired by the Morocco of the 1950s.
Public holidays: New Year's Day; Eid ul-Fitr (End of Ramadan); Throne Day (3 March); Eid ul-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice); Islamic New Year; Labour Day; Fête Nationale (23 May); Prophet's Birthday; Youth Day (9 July); Qued-ed-Dahab (14 Aug); Al-Massira (6 Nov); Independence Day (18 Nov).
Good buys: The best place to find beautiful and bargainous items is at the souk. Look out for leather goods, silver jewellery, copper and brassware, rugs and ceramics - and don't be too shy to barter.
Local dishes: Moroccan cuisine is as rich and varied as its culture. Favourites includetajines, dates, olives and nuts, and kefta (seasoned mince lamb).
Funny fact: Half the population of Morocco is under 20. What's more, there are 12 times as many cows as there are human beings.
Good reading: For a sense of the history of the country, check out Medinas: Morocco's Hidden Cities, a collection of images and poems by French photographer Jean-Marie Tingaud and Morocco's foremost author Tahar Ben Jelloun. Walter Harris's account of the years leading up to the French Protectorate, in Morocco That Was, is hard to put down. And Peter Mayne's A Year in Marrakech is an entertaining read, inspired by the Morocco of the 1950s.
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