A Mexican Journey in the Marrakech Medina: An Evening at Azulik Inla

The lane tells you almost nothing. Near Dar El Bacha the Marrakech Medina goes on doing what it always does: stone underfoot, mopeds leaning against the walls, narrow passages that give little away about what lies beyond them. Then, in front of one door, a torch is burning, and that is the first sign.

You step inside, but the evening at Azulik Inla has not quite started yet. There is a small room for passing through, almost a pause between the street and what comes next, and then a red velvet curtain opens. The first thing to change is the sound: on the other side, the music is Latin. When the patio opens up, everything else changes too, and within a few steps Marrakech seems to have stayed behind the door. On a red Berber rug at the threshold sits a black and white cat called Pablo, who lives here.

A Small Latin World in the Medina

Azulik Inla occupies a riad, but once you are inside you almost stop reading it as one. The architecture stays Moroccan: the patio open to the sky, the rooms rising all around it, the vertical build of the house. What has been made inside it speaks another language, of earth, wood, terracotta, plants and low light, and from the moment you enter the mood is deeply Latin.

The feeling comes from the furnishings and, just as much, from the music, the way the spaces are arranged, the pace of the evening, the food that arrives in the middle of the table and the bar built around tequila and mezcal. All of it pulls in the same direction, and all of it seems to have grown here. The house took shape over more than a year of work with Moroccan craftsmen, in local materials and by hand, with the Yucatán as its reference, and the affinities between the two worlds turned out to be surprisingly natural: earth, fire, raw materials, surfaces worked by hand, warmth. That is what Azulik Inla does most convincingly: it is deeply Latin without ceasing to belong to Marrakech.

On the Roof, Above All

Azulik Inla spreads over three levels, Valladolid for the patio, Mérida for the floor above and Tulum for the rooftop, and there is no need to move through all of them in one evening. Most of the life of the restaurant gathers on the roof, and that is where to have dinner, ideally arriving before sunset.

After the narrow lanes of the medina, climbing onto the roof changes your sense of space once again, and the sky is suddenly enormous. The natural materials stay with you, the wood, the terracotta, the cacti and the pergola, but the space opens out. It is a rooftop that can carry a long dinner and keep the evening calm.

The place changes with whoever arrives. It works for a family, for dinner with friends, for a couple or for a romantic evening, and most nights it stays quiet; at times, when live music and a DJ come in, it turns livelier, and everyone takes it their own way. Doors open for dinner only, every evening from six until midnight, and the rest is on Azulik Inla's page.

If You Want Something More Intimate

The rooms inside tell a different story about Azulik Inla. Mérida, upstairs, is more gathered in, with small rooms and low light; the patio below keeps the same language as the rest of the house, with a more sheltered feeling than the roof. These are the spaces to choose for a more intimate dinner, or simply when you want to keep a little more to yourselves.

This double nature makes Azulik Inla hard to put in a single category. It is carefully kept and informal at the same time, as right for a long table of friends as for a romantic dinner, and when the evening allows it, lively enough for anyone looking for a little more energy.

Dinner Arrives in the Middle of the Table

The Mexican food follows the same spirit, with plates that come to be shared. Guacamole, tacos, nachos: the table fills up quickly and everyone eats by passing things from one side to the other. The tortillas are made in the house, and so are the nachos, and the care given to the simplest elements says a great deal about the kitchen.

Tacos are where the menu is meant to keep growing, and the aim is to add more and more of them to the selection. Los Tacos Azulik Inla, the house signature, come as seven pieces meant for sharing, and at the end even the churros are prepared to order. It is a kitchen that stays informal and careful, and it carries the atmosphere of the rest of the house through to the plate.

Tequila, Mezcal and a Metre of Shots

The same goes for the bar. Tequila and mezcal lead, and the detail that tells you most about the spirit of the place is the metre of shots: ten small glasses arriving in a line on the table, which belong to the whole group from the moment they land. Like the tacos in the middle of the table, the drink becomes something shared, which is the whole idea behind Azulik Inla.

The Two Women Behind It All

Behind Azulik Inla are Laetitia and her daughter, Inès, and it is their first restaurant. They spent more than a year with Moroccan craftsmen building this house, shaping the interiors by hand and looking for a meeting point between Morocco and the Yucatán. They also choose the menu and decide what goes on it, while the cooking is in the hands of three executive chefs, with no single chef's name over the kitchen. After a few hours here, their story is easy to read: the food, the music, the spaces, the bar, an evening that can be calm or livelier, all of it seems to come from the same world.

The name, too, brings the story back to Marrakech. Azul is an Amazigh greeting, and one of the most common readings takes it apart into az, come closer, and ul, heart; into the rest of the name the two founders put something of their own. You come in through a door in the medina and a few seconds later you are in a small Latin world. Then you look more closely and find that this world was built here.