Overview:
Dining at Restaurant Marrakesh is about more than just the meal itself, but rather the complete experience. Having eaten at many of the restaurants around World Showcase I can say that Restaurant Marrakesh provides possibly the most immersive dining experience. The art and architecture, the music, and of course the food all contribute to give guests a small taste of Moroccan culture. The back of the menu provides a short overview of the country’s culture and traditions and notes that Morocco is a country of “timeless wonders” which has been developed and refined over centuries. Indeed, dining at Restaurant Marrakesh makes you feel as though you have been transported to a time and place very far away and everything that you see, hear, and taste during your meal all contributes to this experience.
Atmosphere:
While the dining room at Restaurant Marrakesh is not very large, it feels much bigger than it actually is. Its high ceilings give the restaurant a very open feel, which is enhanced by the fact that the dining room is just one large space. The restaurant has a casual yet elegant feel, almost as if you were dining in the banquet hall of a grand Moroccan palace.
One of the things I enjoyed most about the restaurant was the level of detail in its art and architectural elements, all of which gives you plenty to look at as you are dining. The elaborate wall mosaics, painted ceilings, decorative carpets, and beautiful light fixtures all help to create an exotic feel of a faraway land.
Adding to this atmosphere is the lighting, or lack thereof. The dining room has no windows and thus no natural light. What light there is comes from the intricate light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, including some with pink lightbulbs, giving the dining room a dark, somewhat mysterious feel.
Another major element of the atmosphere is the live entertainment. As I said earlier, dining at Restaurant Marrakesh is about having a complete experience. The immersion into Moroccan culture does not stop with the art, architecture, and detailed theming, but continues with music and dancing performed periodically in the center of the restaurant. While the live music is not continuous (the performances last about a half an hour), there is a good chance that you will see them perform at some point during your meal. The music, unlike anything I have ever heard before, adds to the exotic feel of the restaurant but at the same time is not too overpowering. While it is loud enough to be heard from all parts of the restaurant, it is not so loud that you cannot have a conversation with others sitting at your table. After playing a couple of songs, the musicians are joined by a belly dancer performing some traditional Moroccan dances. I thought it was a nice touch that the dancer invited some of the children to the dance floor in the center of the room to teach them some different moves.
Overall, the music and dancing create a festive atmosphere and combine with the food and the restaurant’s architectural elements to completely transport you to Morocco. The restaurant has a completely different feel from anywhere else I have dined at Disney World and a large part of this is because it is a complete sensory experience; its sights, sounds, and tastes all combine to completely immerse you into Moroccan culture.
The Menu:
This was my first-ever experience with Moroccan food and the menu at Restaurant Marrakesh definitely includes some different and exotic items for the more adventurous diners. One thing that I can say about Moroccan cuisine after my meal is that it is all about flavor. Just in my meal alone I noticed a wide assortment of spices and flavors that both complimented and contrasted each other in a level of complexity that went beyond food that I am typically used to eating. That being said, the food was actually not as spicy as I expected, but still full of flavor.
The menu offers a fairly wide assortment of Moroccan dishes. Appetizers are generally on the lighter side, including both chicken and seafood Bastilla. Bastillas are thin, flaky pastries, the chicken one stuffed with chicken and almonds and the seafood one filled with grouper, shrimp, mushrooms, onions, and egg. Another appetizer choice is Harira Soup flavored with tomatoes, lentils, and lamb. There are a plethora of entrée choices featuring different styles of Moroccan cuisine. One of the more popular menu items is the Roast Lamb Meshoui, a lamb shank braised in natural juices served with roasted eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes. Morocco is very well-known for its couscous, so it is not surprising that the menu also offers several to choose from, including beef, chicken, vegetable, and lamb shank couscous. From the grill, the menu features Shish Kabobs and Chicken Kabobs marinated in herbs and spices. With all these different choices it may be difficult to pick just one thing to get. Fortunately the menu offers a couple of ways to sample several of the different dishes. One of these options is the Berber Feast, which comes with a Chicken Kabob, Roast Lamb Meshoui, Vegetable Couscous, and a fresh fruit salad. The dessert menu offers a variety of Moroccan pastries, such as Baklava and Bastilla, as well as Marrakesh Delight, a fresh fruit salad topped with mint ice cream and toasted almonds.
For my meal I decided to try the Chef’s Lunch special, which included an appetizer, entrée, and a dessert. I felt this was the best way to get the most complete sampling of different Moroccan dishes. Unlike the lunch special at Chefs de France or at Le Cellier, where you have a choice of different dishes, the lunch special at Marrakesh is prix fixe with no substitutions.
The appetizer was a Beef Brewat Roll, a thin pastry filled with minced beef and then topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar and accompanied by a small salad. I was a little hesitant about this dish because I was not sure how the combination of beef with cinnamon and powdered sugar would taste. I turned out to be pleasantly surprised. The pastry roll itself was delicious. Crispy and flaky, it tasted very much like a pastry you would have for dessert. The beef was not too heavily season and, in fact, the roll would not have had much flavor if it had not been for the cinnamon and powdered sugar. I was shocked at how well the cinnamon complimented and enhanced the flavor of the beef. These are not too flavors that I would typically associate with each other, but they contrasted and yet complimented each other very well. The salad that came with the beef roll was very light and refreshing and was topped with a mayonnaise-based salad dressing that was very creamy.
The entrée on the lunch special was Chicken Kabobs, a dish that I have had before at other restaurants but never matching the flavors of the ones here at Marrakesh. The chicken was seasoned with Moroccan herbs and spices, which definitely gave it a little kick but was far from being overwhelming. There was also a slightly spicy sauce served over the kabobs, which enhanced the flavor of the chicken and added more complexity and depth to the flavor of the meal as a whole. My only complaint was that there could have been more sauce because, although the chicken was very tender, it was a little dry. Accompanying the chicken on the kabobs were mushrooms seasoned with the same spices. Although the mushrooms paired very well with the chicken, I felt they could have been cooked a little longer because they were a bit hard. The kabobs also came with rice. Surprisingly, for all the flavor found in the rest of the dish, the rice was pretty plain. This is another reason why it would have been nice to have more sauce because mixing it with the rice would have given it much more flavor.
The dessert was Baklava, a Moroccan specialty. Although the portion was not too big, it was just right size after a large meal. The pastries were light, flaky, and very sweet, which offered a nice contrast to the spiciness of the chicken kabobs. The Baklava was also topped with almonds which added more flavor and texture to the dessert.
Service:
The service was really the only disappointing part of my experience at Restaurant Marrakesh. I hardly ever saw my server at all throughout the entire meal and when I did see him there was very little interaction between us. After I was seated, the server brought me a menu but did not even explain or describe any of the items for me, which I found a bit surprising because not too many Americans are familiar with Moroccan food. After taking my order the only times I saw my server were when he was bringing out my appetizer, entrée, and dessert. The server did not even stop by to make sure I was enjoying everything, which has never happened to me at a Disney restaurant. That being said, I thought the pace of the meal was very good. Sometimes when you order off of a prix fixe menu the appetizer, entrée, and dessert are brought out in rapid succession, but here the meal progressed at a leisurely pace giving you time to enjoy the entertainment and digest between courses.
Dining on a Budget:
As with most restaurants at Disney World, I highly recommend going to Restaurant Marrakesh for lunch rather than dinner because you are getting almost the same menu but at a cheaper price. For example, the Roast Lamb Meshoui will cost you $18.95 for lunch but then goes up to $27.95 for dinner. I am sure the dinner portions are larger than the lunch portions, but I left lunch feeling completely full and did not even finish all of my chicken kabobs. The best value on the menu is definitely the Chef’s Lunch Special because you get a complete meal with appetizer, entrée, and dessert for just $19.95. Another good option if you are looking for a sampling of different menu items is the Sultan’s Sampler, which includes a Grilled Brochette of either beef or chicken, a Beef Brewat Roll, Chicken Bastilla, and Vegetable Couscous all for $21.95. The Berber Feast, which I mentioned earlier, is another way to taste a variety of different dishes but at $27.95 is a little more expensive than the other two options. Still, all these options come out cheaper than if you were to order an appetizer, entree, and dessert separately off the menu.
The Overall Experience:
This was my first time dining at Restaurant Marrakesh and I can say without a doubt that I will definitely be going back again. Nearly every aspect of the restaurant exceeded my expectations. The level of detail and theming in the restaurant’s décor, the authentic Moroccan music and dancing, and the extremely flavorful food all contributed to create a completely immersive atmosphere. I think this has to be one of the more exotic dining locations that I have been to at Disney World. More so than many of the dining locations at Disney, Restaurant Marrakesh transports you to another time and another place, a faraway land very different from our own, and gives you a little taste of Moroccan culture. I would highly recommend this restaurant for anyone looking for a meal that is both different and unique. It is definitely a restaurant for the more adventurous, people who like to try different dishes and different flavors. The best part of Restaurant Marrakesh is that it is more than just a meal, but rather an experience that is aptly described on the restaurant’s menu as “a cultural feast.”
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