55 Places for Dinner Outside in Marrakech

El Fenn began as one of the medina's first boutique hotels, and its rooftop is still among the most assured places to eat outside in the old city. Spread over several levels near the Koutoubia, it serves seasonal Moroccan cooking and drinks from a thirty-foot marble bar, with the mosque close enough to time dinner by the call to prayer. The building doubles as one of the city's serious private art collections, so the climb up passes work worth slowing down for. Tables sit among potted greenery and painted plaster, the crowd a mix of hotel guests and residents who treat it as a regular. Come for sunset drinks first, then stay for dinner. The light on the Koutoubia is reason enough to book the earlier seating.

The rooftop of the Nobu Hotel in Hivernage plays the room like a beach club: a circular pool, cabanas, and a full turn of views over the city and the Atlas. Alongside the Mediterranean-Moroccan plates there is a dedicated sushi bar, the one place on this list where the kitchen's signature is raw fish rather than a tagine. It runs long. Poolside lunch slides into sunset cocktails and then into a later, DJ-led energy as the evening builds. Non-guests can book, which is worth knowing: this is a hotel rooftop that behaves like a destination. Reserve ahead and ask for a poolside table at golden hour. The room leans polished, so dress for it.

Safran sits high over the medina with the Koutoubia straight ahead, built for the full evening rather than a quiet dinner. The kitchen runs Mediterranean-Moroccan, tagines and grilled octopus next to a black cod in Saikyo miso, cooked by two chefs who trained between the Royal Mansour and Paris. After nine the terrace turns. Gnawa musicians, dancers, and DJ sets take over, and dinner becomes one of the liveliest nights in the centre of town. It is a rooftop that wears both hats: a proper meal early, a show later. Book late for the music, early if you want the view and the food to come first.

A few steps off Jemaa el Fna on Riad Zitoun Lakdim, Dardar stacks a restaurant, a cocktail bar, and a rooftop over several floors. It is one of the rarer medina addresses that serves alcohol, with the Koutoubia in view and a kitchen that moves between Moroccan tradition and international plates. The draw is the top floor: creative cocktails, live entertainment, and a terrace that fills as the square below empties. Prices stay reasonable for the location, which keeps the room young and busy. Head straight up for drinks. The lower floors are calmer if you actually want to talk.

Open above Souk Cherifia since 2007, Terrasse des Epices was doing the medina rooftop long before it became the format everyone copies. Cushioned alcoves and woven canopies ring an open-air floor, the view running from the Koutoubia to the Atlas, with a full bar to go with the Moroccan and Mediterranean cooking. The tanjia marrakchia has been on the menu since the first day, and there is a traditional patisserie two floors down for something sweet on the way out. Live music most nights keeps it from ever feeling like a museum piece. A dependable first-night rooftop: central, easy to reach through the souk, and less of a scene than the newer arrivals.

Near the Bahia Palace, Otto is the medina rooftop for people who like their design pared back: a clean, monochrome terrace with the illuminated Koutoubia filling the view. The cooking is Italian-Moroccan, black risotto with scallops, grilled octopus, tuna in a pistachio crust. By day it is a calm lunch spot; by night the same terrace picks up, with afrobeat DJ sets and a livelier crowd. The switch is gradual, so you can land on either side of it depending on when you book. Sit for an early dinner if you want the food to lead, later if you want the music.

Hidden in a historic riad near Bab Doukkala, Flowers cooks over open fire under a Swedish chef who built a name in Helsinki for plant-forward kitchens. The result reads differently from the Moroccan norm: seasonal sharing plates, North African and Mediterranean flavours, a botanical hand on the plate. The setting stays intimate, more courtyard-in-the-sky than party terrace, with greenery threaded through the tables. It rewards a slow evening and a table of people happy to order across the menu. Best for a relaxed dinner with a group. Go in ready to share rather than order a plate each.

A three-floor oriental brasserie a short walk from Jemaa el Fna, Le Salama runs colonial-era dining rooms below and a rooftop Sky Bar on top, with the medina and the Atlas laid out beyond. The tanjia marrakchia is the dish to order, the slow-cook that gives the room its sense of place. Live piano and nightly belly-dance shows set the register, and the terrace carries the evening from a sunset table through to cocktails that run until two. It is theatrical by design, and comfortable with it. Book the rooftop for sunset, then let the night come to you. The show is part of the deal, not a distraction from it.

Kabana is the rooftop right by the Koutoubia that leans hardest into the party: Mediterranean sharing plates and sushi early, then a terrace that fills nightly with DJ sets and live music. The mosque sits floodlit at eye level, which never stops being the best thing in the room. Cocktails are taken seriously and the kitchen holds up its end, but the arc of the night is the point. Sunset drinks become open-air dancing without anyone deciding they should. Come for the golden hour, stay if you want the dancefloor. It gets loud and full on weekends.

Opened in 2025 directly over Jemaa el Fna, MO-MO takes two panoramic terraces and a boldly coloured interior and, unusually for a rooftop with this view, keeps it walk-in only. No reservation, no ceremony, just turn up and take the stairs. The kitchen puts a lighter, Mediterranean spin on Moroccan classics, kofta, tagine, feta cigars, with inventive mocktails to match, which makes it an easy call for anyone skipping alcohol. For the price, the vantage over the square is hard to beat. Go early to land a front-row terrace table. Because it does not take bookings, the best spots go to whoever arrives first.

Tucked away near Dar el Bacha, Azulik Inla is the medina's odd one out: a Mexican kitchen on a riad rooftop, dealing in ceviches, tacos, and mezcal instead of tagines. It works because it does not try to be Moroccan, it just borrows the setting. Raw natural materials and low golden light give the terrace a warm, dim feel, more late dinner than sunset spectacle. For anyone who has had their fill of harira and wants a change of register, this is the detour. Come when you want a break from Moroccan food, not for the view. The pleasure here is the room and the mezcal list.

Set inside a riad off Kaat Benahid, Le Slimana pairs a contemporary Moroccan kitchen downstairs with a rooftop terrace made for the end of the day. The menu runs from creative kemias and lamb-shoulder ravioli to caramelised octopus, with the traditional tagines done properly alongside. The terrace is the sunset-cocktail floor, quieter and more intimate than the big party rooftops nearby. Save room for the rose and pistachio creme brulee, which regulars plan the evening around. Book dinner downstairs and drinks up top, or just the rooftop if you want the calmer, later end of a medina night.

Akira Back brings its Japanese-Korean fusion to the Pestana CR7 rooftop on M Avenue, in the newer Hivernage strip rather than the old city. The formula is one the group has tested across the world, and here it comes with open-air seating, panoramic views, and a lounge feel that outlasts the meal. It is polished and international rather than local in spirit, which is exactly the appeal for some evenings. The room stays going well past dinner, sliding into drinks as the night settles. A good choice when you want a slick, modern night out in Hivernage rather than a medina rooftop. Go for the tasting plates, stay for the lounge.

The most affordable table on this list, Cafe des Epices has anchored the Rahba Kedima spice square for years, three floors of tadelakt rising to a rooftop with Atlas views over the souk. The food is simple and honest, Moroccan plates, fresh juices, and mint tea rather than a chef's statement. That is the point. This is the unfussy rooftop you climb to without a reservation, as good for an early-evening plate over the lantern-lit square as for a mid-souk breather in daylight. It stays open into dinner, keeping things simple while the grander terraces nearby put on a show. The budget-friendly medina rooftop. Come up for the view and the square, not for a big meal.

On Rue Jbel Lakhdar in the medina, SAMA takes the rooftop of Diaffa, a century-old family house, and turns the table skyward, sama being the Arabic word for the heavens. The Koutoubia stands across the rooftops, close enough to set the hour, and dinner unfolds as the light turns amber, a dining room with the roof taken off. The kitchen moves between Mediterranean and South American registers, anchored in Morocco through its ingredients: dates, almonds, orange blossom, ras el hanout. It works in small plates and sharing dishes, still uncommon in the city, so the meal keeps moving, passed and refilled from sunset into the louder, music-led second half of the night. Come at golden hour and let dinner spread across the evening. It is built as an arc, not a single sitting, and turns festive later.

On Boulevard Mohamed VI in Agdal, Nommos is a restaurant-lounge where a Mediterranean steakhouse and a sushi counter share an open kitchen, and every evening brings a live dinner show of musicians, dancers, gnawa artists, and acrobats. The action moves up to the rooftop Sky Lounge as the night goes on. Up there it is cocktails, DJ sets, and panoramic views, an open-air finish to a night built around eating well and staying late. It sits with the city's dinner-show addresses, on the polished, contemporary end. Book for the show, then head to the roof. This is dinner as a full evening out.

La Mamounia keeps two restaurants out in its gardens, and this is the Italian one, now under Simone Zanoni. It is built around a wood-fired oven and an open kitchen, the dining room bright and opening straight onto the greenery, designed by Jouin Manku. The cooking is precise Italian, fresh pasta, seasonal risotti, pizzas from that oven, with Pierre Herme handling the desserts. Even inside a hotel this grand, the garden setting keeps it feeling like a meal outdoors rather than a formal dining room. Ask for a garden-side table and go at dusk, when the Mamounia grounds are at their best.

The Moroccan half of La Mamounia's garden dining sits in a lantern-lit riad deep in the grounds, Arabo-Andalusian architecture and Andalusian musicians included. It has been running for over thirty years, and it shows in the ease of the service. Chef Rachid Agouray moves between classic tagines and more refined signatures like lobster pastilla, with much of the produce coming from the hotel's own kitchen garden. This is the grand, traditional version of dining outside in Marrakech, closer to ceremony than to a casual terrace. The occasion table. Worth it for an anniversary or a first proper night in the city, less so for a quick dinner.

Inside the Royal Mansour, Sesamo is the Alajmo brothers' Italian table, with Riccardo Barni running the kitchen. The list reads like a greatest hits of modern Italian, Cappuccino Majorelle, langoustine spaghettoni, saffron risotto, Neapolitan pizzas, and a cloud of tiramisu to close. The interiors are full Venetian palazzo, Murano glass and velvet, but the seat to ask for is outside: the courtyard patio, which at sunset becomes one of the most coveted dinner tables in the city. Book the patio well ahead and time it for golden hour. The indoor room is beautiful, but the courtyard is the whole point.

The Royal Mansour's French brasserie is directed by Helene Darroze, her first restaurant on the African continent, and it brings the full grammar of grand Parisian service to a garden setting in the medina. Seasonal French cooking, Moroccan produce, and the kind of tableside ritual that has largely disappeared elsewhere. It runs all day, from breakfast through to a well-known Sunday brunch, but the evening in the garden is when it earns its place here. Formal without being stiff, and unusually consistent. For dinner outside, come in the evening rather than for brunch. The garden is calmer and the kitchen is at full stretch.

Out at the Mandarin Oriental, Shirvan spreads across twenty hectares of olive groves with the Atlas rising behind, a Gilles & Boissier dining room of Cordoba-inspired columns opening onto a broad terrace above the resort's reflecting pools. The kitchen is now a Moroccan one, led by Kasbah-born chef Hind Nebgane. A spice-driven cocktail bar and a Berber tent sit alongside, which makes an evening here feel like more than a single table. The scale is the draw: this is garden dining with real distance from the city, worth the drive out. Go early enough for a drink on the terrace before the light drops behind the mountains. It is a trip out of town, so make an evening of it.

Ling Ling shares the Mandarin Oriental's olive-grove grounds with Shirvan but plays a completely different game: an izakaya-inspired room from the Hakkasan Group, modern Cantonese sharing plates, Peking duck, and dim sum on a terrace looking out to the Atlas. Resident DJs and a serious cocktail list tip it from dinner into the night, and there is a Saturday Yum Cha brunch for those who want it earlier. Of the resort restaurants, this is the one that doubles as a night out. Come for dinner and stay for the DJ. It is one of the few garden tables in town that turns properly late.

The Park Hyatt's Moroccan brasserie takes regional cooking from across the kingdom and the wider Arab world and rebuilds it with fine-dining technique, served in a columned room that looks out to the Atlas foothills. Much of the produce comes from the hotel's own organic garden. The dishes are built to impress: eight-hour lamb shoulder, lobster mechoui with black garlic and saffron, sharing plates of chhiwates. Weekend evenings bring live cooking and music, when the terrace is at its liveliest. Best on a weekend evening for the full effect. Go hungry and order the lamb.

Noto is the festive Italian in the garden and Art Deco rooms of Villa Yvette in Hivernage, brought over by the Paris-based Moma Group with Sardinian chef Emilio Giagnoni in the kitchen. Truffle tagliolini, saffron risotto, burrata, tiramisu, the reassuring Italian canon done well. The house calls its formula foodtertainment: live music opens the evening before a DJ shifts the room into lounge mode. It is a garden dinner that fully intends to become a night, and the city has taken to it. Book later rather than early if you want the music and the change in energy. The garden is the seat to request.

Epicurien sits inside the Casino de Marrakech at the Es Saadi resort in Hivernage, and it keeps unusually late hours: international cooking served until three in the morning, with a live band and DJ sets running alongside. This is dinner as the opening act of a longer night. It is less about the plate than the whole evening, a garden-resort room that leans into music and atmosphere. Useful to know when everywhere else is winding down and you are not ready to. The late option. Come after another dinner, or when you want the night to keep going, not for a quiet meal.

At the Four Seasons, Inara is built around a riad-style fountain set in sixteen hectares of gardens, a Moroccan restaurant and lounge that runs from morning right through to late evening. Tagines and Lebanese meze share the menu, and the cocktails are given real attention. The pull is the setting: water, greenery, and the Atlas in the distance, with live music in the evenings. It is the resort garden as calm outdoor dining rather than a scene, which is exactly its appeal. An easy, unhurried evening and one of the more family-friendly garden tables. Go for sunset and let the kids roam the grounds.

Montecristo has been a Gueliz institution since 2004, and it is really four venues in one building: a restaurant, a live-music bar, a rooftop lounge, and a nightclub, so the evening can travel without ever leaving the address. Dinner is international and unfussy, the setup for what comes after. From the table the night climbs through jazz and soul at the Sinatra Bar to late DJs upstairs. Come for the food if you like, but the real proposition is a whole evening under one roof, out in the open air for as much of it as the season allows. Start with dinner and let the building carry you upward. It is a night out more than a meal.

Hidden behind an Art Deco cinema in Gueliz, Petanque Social Club is a tree-filled courtyard built around a 1930s petanque court, restored by Kamal Laftimi with upcycled materials, vintage Mamounia chairs, and a shelf of poetry. It is the rare garden in this part of town that feels found rather than staged. The kitchen keeps it Mediterranean and local, with Soulshakers cocktails and an easy all-day rhythm that pulls in the city's creative crowd from morning coffee to the small hours. Dinner under the trees here is as much about the setting as the plate. Come for a long, low-key dinner outdoors. It is one of the most relaxed garden tables in Gueliz.

Out on the Route de l'Ourika, Bo Zin sets its pan-Asian kitchen in a torch-lit villa garden that has been a fixture of the going-out crowd for years. Wok-fired dishes, dim sum, and cocktails come with a resident DJ, and the evening slides from dinner to dancefloor as it goes. It is a drive from the centre, which is part of the appeal: a garden dinner with room to become a proper night, best saved for a weekend when the place is full. Go on a weekend and go late. Midweek it can feel quiet, which misses the point.

Also on the Route de l'Ourika, Dar Soukkar occupies a sixteenth-century former sugar factory turned palace, and it does nothing by halves. The kitchen spans Moroccan, Asian, and Mediterranean, but the draw is the setting and the nightly show of music, dance, and fire. This is the theatrical end of garden dining, grand in scale and built for a group or a celebration rather than a quiet two-top. Go knowing the spectacle is the reason to be there. Best with a table of people and an appetite for the show. Not the place for an intimate dinner.

Arva is the Italian restaurant at Amanjena, Aman's rose-hued resort out on the Route de Ouarzazate, set poolside within an architecture built around stillness and water. Dinner is served among the olive groves, the Atlas somewhere beyond the palms. The cooking is seasonal and ingredient-led in the Aman manner, restrained rather than showy, letting the produce and the setting do the work. This is the quietest, most composed garden dinner on the list, closer to an oasis than a night out. One seasonal note: this summer the dining room closes on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, when dinner moves outdoors to a pizza pop-up by the pool and olive grove. A drive from the city and worth it for the calm, so come for an unhurried evening and let the stillness set the pace.

Out in the garden district along Boulevard Mohamed VI, Nouba is a dinner-show in a tropical open-air setting, where a fusion of international, Asian, and Moroccan plates shares the evening with La Revue by Nouba, a nightly run of aerial acrobats, dancers, fire, and live vocalists. The food is secondary to the spectacle, and it knows it: a full cocktail programme and a resident DJ carry the night well past the final curtain. This is garden dining as entertainment, big and theatrical. Go with a group and book for the show. Dinner here is a night out, not a quiet meal.

La Bottega is a Gueliz all-rounder, part restaurant, part Italian epicerie, run by two Italians who import what they cannot make and make everything else on site. Homemade ravioli, Roman-style pizza, house-churned gelato, and shelves of deli goods you can take home. The setting is colourful and unpretentious, with a terrace that suits a casual dinner or a long lunch equally. It is the neighbourhood Italian you end up returning to rather than the one you save for an occasion. Good for an easy weeknight dinner outdoors. Leave room for the gelato and browse the shelves on the way out.

In Majorelle blue and daffodil yellow, Le Petit Cornichon is chef-owner Erwann Lance's Gueliz bistro, running bistronomie by day and more ambitious seasonal cooking at night, all built on French technique and Moroccan produce. The ceviche alone is worth the table. Upstairs there is a wine cellar of more than three hundred references from small French growers, which tells you where the priorities lie. The street-side terrace is where to sit on a mild evening. Come for dinner rather than lunch to catch the kitchen at its most ambitious, and let them steer the wine.

A tiny wood-fired pizzeria in the Semlalia corner of Gueliz, Le Petit Napolitain has three tables inside and five out, and turns out some of the most honest Neapolitan pizza in Marrakech. San Marzano tomatoes, homemade dough, a menu kept deliberately short. There is nothing to it beyond doing one thing well, which is why the city's Italians treat it as a weekly fixture. The five outdoor tables are the ones to want. The budget outdoor dinner. Turn up early: there are only five tables outside and they go fast.

On Avenue Mohammed V, Mizaan comes from the team behind L'Mida, with Abdel Alaoui's kitchen working across Moroccan, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean flavours in plates built for the middle of the table. The room is artisan-made and warm, the terrace a good perch on the avenue. It shifts as the night goes on, from a relaxed dinner into a cocktail-driven evening with a resident DJ, and there is a speakeasy hidden in the basement for anyone who stays late. A terrace that keeps its options open. Order to share and stay for a drink. Ask about the basement bar if the night is going well.

On Place du 16 Novembre in Gueliz, Grand Cafe de la Poste is a 1925 French brasserie restored by Studio KO, all colonial elegance and Moorish detail. The wraparound terrace runs from breakfast until late, and after dark it is one of the more atmospheric street-side dinners in the new town. Classic Parisian dishes, a candlelit checkerboard floor, and live jazz upstairs give it a grown-up, old-world register. It has aged into an institution without trying too hard. Book a terrace table for dinner and go late. The evening is when the room comes into its own.

Entrepotes is a leafy tapas bar and lounge in Gueliz, built around a garden courtyard with an eclectic wine cellar and a sharing menu that runs between Mediterranean and Asian. The cocktails are theatrical, the following loyal and local. It gets the balance right between restaurant and bar, with a resident DJ and an easy energy that keeps the courtyard full without tipping into a scene. A reliable choice for a relaxed evening outdoors. Go for drinks and small plates rather than a formal dinner. The courtyard is best on a warm night.

In Hivernage, L'Endroit is a seafood-focused Mediterranean restaurant run by a Toulon-born chef with more than twenty years in Marrakech, which shows in a menu of bouillabaisse, sole meuniere, and monkfish bourride. This is southern French cooking, done with conviction. The setting is warm and multi-level in the Beldi Chic register, with a terrace for the milder evenings. It is a grown-up, unflashy choice in a district that often leans loud. Come for the seafood and a quieter evening, a good option when Hivernage's bigger rooms feel like too much.

On the top floor of the Es Saadi Palace, La Cour des Lions revisits forgotten Moroccan recipes in a room of carved stone and sculpted plaster, with the terrace opening to a panorama over Hivernage and the Atlas beyond. It is the palace-dining version of a terrace table. The cooking is traditional and carefully researched rather than reinvented, which suits the grandeur of the setting. This is the dressier end of the terrace list, closer in spirit to the palace gardens than the Gueliz bistros. The occasion table in Hivernage. Go for the view at sunset and dress for the room.

The Oberoi's all-day restaurant, Tamimt takes its name from the Berber word for delight, and cooks across Moroccan, Mediterranean, and Indian using produce from the hotel's own organic garden. The chandelier-lit dining room with its show kitchen opens onto a terrace above the grand canal, olive groves, and the Atlas. Out on the Route d'Ouarzazate, it is a drive from the centre, and it uses the distance well: a calm, expansive terrace with a lounge for an aperitif before or a nightcap after. Resort dining that earns the trip. Come out for a long, unhurried evening. Arrive early for a drink on the terrace while the light is still on the mountains.

Comptoir Darna has set the tempo of Marrakech nights since 1999, a 1930s villa in Hivernage where Moroccan dining, live music, and belly dancing fold into a single long evening. The terrace makes it an outdoor dinner as much as a show. The food is solid Moroccan, but nobody comes only to eat: the performances build through the night, and the room turns from dinner into something closer to a party. It is an institution, and it knows it. Book the terrace and go with a group ready to make a night of it. Dinner starts calm and does not stay that way.

On Rue Dar el Bacha, Dar Moha has been a reference point for modern Moroccan cooking since 1998, set in a historic riad around a zellige-tiled courtyard pool. Dinner is served at the water's edge, under the open sky of the patio. The kitchen takes traditional recipes and refines them with contemporary technique, an approach that felt radical when it opened and still holds up. The setting does half the work: candlelight, tilework, and the pool at the centre of it all. Book a table by the pool and go for the full menu. This is a classic that has aged well.

La Table de La Sultana serves dinner poolside in the candlelit courtyard of La Sultana, a five-riad hotel in the Kasbah quarter. The cooking is Moroccan and French, seasonal and terroir-driven, with live oud and a cellar that runs to three thousand bottles. It is one of the more refined courtyard dinners in the medina, formal without losing the intimacy of the riad. The water, the candles, and the restored craftsmanship around you set a quiet, grown-up tone. For a special dinner in the Kasbah. Reserve ahead and let the evening go slowly.

In Bab Doukkala, Naama pairs Italian architecture with Moroccan craft across a pool patio and a rooftop that looks straight at the Koutoubia. Dinner can happen at either, in the courtyard by the water or up top under the stars. The Josper grill anchors a Mediterranean-Moroccan menu, charcoal-kissed octopus, aged beef, reimagined tagines. It runs from morning coffee through to a proper dinner, and the design carries it the whole way. Ask where you want to sit when you book: the patio for intimacy, the roof for the view.

Hidden near Bab Taghzout, Limoni sets its tables in a lemon-tree courtyard around a fountain, with a rooftop terrace above. The kitchen is Italian-Moroccan, homemade ravioli limoni and wood-fired pizzas next to traditional tagines, and, for the curious, a dromedary burger. It is a calm escape from the medina crush, tiled and green and easy, the kind of place regulars come back to. Prices stay gentle for the setting. A relaxed courtyard dinner without the ceremony. Good for an unfussy evening among the lemon trees.

Villa Aaron is a 1936 family house near the Kasbah, restored in vivid hand-painted tiles and zellige, now serving a Mediterranean-Moroccan sharing menu from Spanish chef Luisma Naranjo. Dinner is in the patio, sunlit by day and lit for music by night. Mechoui cannelloni and raviolis with chakchouka show the crossover on the plate, and the cocktail bar keeps the room going into live music and late DJ sets. It shifts easily from quiet meal to full evening. Come with a group and stay late. The patio is at its best once the music starts.

La Maison Arabe has been serving refined Moroccan cuisine since 1946, and in the warm months dinner moves outdoors, to tables around the pool, under stone arches, and in the olive garden. Live Arab-Andalusian music runs through the evening. This is heritage dining, the medina table that once drew Churchill and the Aga Khan, with a menu rooted in tradition rather than reinvention. The courtyard and garden give it the open-air register the grand indoor room cannot. Ask for an outdoor table when you book, and go for the full traditional menu.

Les Jardins du Lotus turns a nineteenth-century medina residence into a pink-hued garden restaurant, dinner served around a checkerboard marble patio. The kitchen is a surprise: a Mexican-Canadian chef doing shrimp tacos, tostadas, and lobster rigatoni rather than tagines. Leafy and calm by day, it changes character after dark with DJ sets, Gnawa-infused live music, and a cocktail bar that keeps the courtyard going late. A different note among the medina's riad tables. Go for dinner and stay for the shift into the night. The patio is the seat to want.

Tucked into the Mouassine quarter, Le Jardin is a green-tiled courtyard inside a restored sixteenth-century riad, all banana trees, birdsong, and, famously, a resident tortoise. Dinner is candlelit under the open patio. The menu runs Moroccan tagines and tanjia alongside Mediterranean-leaning mezze and salads. There is no alcohol, but the juices are strong and the calm is the point. It is one of the medina's most restful courtyards. A quiet, alcohol-free dinner among the greenery. Come to slow down, not for a big night.

In the north medina, Dar Yacout has been a defining Marrakech dinner for over forty years, a palatial riad where a multi-course Moroccan diffa is served to live music. The rooftop terrace looks out over the Koutoubia, and the whole evening is built as an occasion. This is the grand, traditional end of medina dining: candlelight, a fixed feast rather than a menu, and a sense of theatre that has drawn visitors for decades. The special-occasion classic. Go hungry, go slowly, and treat it as the evening rather than a meal squeezed in.

Rivayat is the pan-Indian restaurant at the Oberoi, mentored by Rohit Ghai, set on a patio modelled after the fourteenth-century Medersa Ben Youssef. Slow-cooked lamb shanks, coconut prawn masala, and truffle kulcha arrive in a courtyard built for the evening. It sits within a twenty-eight-acre estate of olive groves and citrus with the Atlas beyond, so dinner here is an evening-long detour from the city rather than a quick meal. The one non-medina courtyard on the list, and a change of cuisine. Make the drive and take your time. The patio is worth arriving early for.

La Trattoria has been the grande dame of Italian dining in Gueliz since 1974, set in a 1920s Art Deco villa with interiors by Bill Willis and candlelit tables around a lit indoor pool. The glass-roofed dining room reads like a private garden once the sun goes down. The cooking is classic and confident, handmade pasta, local burrata, Atlas lamb, the sort of menu that does not chase trends because it does not need to. Of the Gueliz terraces, this is the romantic one. The date-night choice. Book a table by the pool and go after dark, when the room is at its most theatrical.

At Selman Marrakech, out on the Route d'Amizmiz, Sabo is Jean-Francois Piege's evening restaurant, a Jacques Garcia patio under a retractable roof that opens straight to the stars. Belle Epoque French classicism meets Moroccan produce, dressed in zellige, carved plaster, and Ginori porcelain. The cooking is precise and a little theatrical: tableside tartare, wood-fired sea bass, Oualidia prawns flambeed in cognac. When the roof is open it becomes one of the more glamorous open-air dinners near the city. A dressed-up evening out of town. Reserve, make the drive, and hope for a clear night with the roof drawn back.

Amanjena's Moroccan restaurant is a candlelit courtyard under a retractable skylight, honey-coloured marble columns rising around a fountain where the Trio Andalou play oud and derbouka most evenings. Berber and Andalusian traditions anchor the kitchen. Tagines, mechoui lamb, and clay-cooked couscous come with fish from Essaouira and herbs from the resort's own gardens. When the skylight is open it is courtyard dining at its most ceremonial, on the grand Aman scale. For a special, unhurried dinner out of town. Go for the full Moroccan menu and let the music set the tempo.