Perle de la Medina

When we finally arrive in Fez, we take a taxi as close to our riad as it will go, and walk the rest of the way through alleys even narrower than those in Marrakech. Since the Riad Louna is full for the night, we’re to stay at their sister hotel, Perle de la Medina. While we wait for someone to take us from Luna to the Perle, we have a glass of water and marvel at Louna’s courtyard. It is really beautiful, with the most elegant blue and white zellij work we’ve seen yet. We’re taken a few blocks away to Perle, and we can’t help but laugh as we enter what really looks like a small palace housing just 6 guest rooms. After one look, we wonder if we’ll bother going back to Riad Louna. Perle has only been open for two months and hasn’t yet appeared in any of the guidebooks. I’m sure Travel & Leisure will profile it soon enough, but we’re scooped them this time! The staff is well-trained, though we do have a comical moment when we’re asked what we’d like for dinner. A woman who seems to be a new manager and the man who brought us to the hotel ask us what we’d like for dinner. No menu is presented, and the two take turns suggesting what we might like and telling us that we can have anything we want. We answer then several times and find we’ve repeated our order about six times before we’re left to enjoy our mint tea and some amazing little almond cookies that are light and not too sweet.



We eat alone in the dining room – it seems the one other couple staying here has taken their dinner elsewhere. As beautiful as the riad is, they haven’t quite figured out lighting. Nowhere in Morocco have we come across dimmer switches, and here the mood in the elegant dining room is dramatically cut by the harsh florescent lighting. As we’re the sole diners, our waiter agrees to turn off the lights and brings a few candles to our table. The chicken pastilla we’ve both ordered is wonderful, though large enough to be a meal in itself. The dish is a sort of sweetened pie with a flaky pastry shell stuffed with chicken, and dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar. By the time our couscous with seven vegetables arrives, we know we’re doomed. In fact, neither of us manages to get through more than a third of our meal, something we’re not used to. “Couscous aux sept legumes” is a standard on Moroccan menus, and we’ve had it many times. We both find it amusing that all menus note the seven vegetables, but the meat that comes with the dish is understood, and thus left unmentioned.