Forget farm-to-table as a pretty phrase on a menu. In Marrakech, Farmers is making the journey from soil to supper part of the experience—and asking a rather delicious question about what we really mean when we talk about dining well.
I have a question. When was the last time you thought about where your dinner began?
Not where you made the reservation. Not who recommended the restaurant. Not even whether the lighting was flattering enough for that first photograph. I mean the actual beginning. The soil. The harvest. The person who picked the vegetables before a chef decided what to do with them.
I know. It sounds terribly earnest for a dinner conversation. But in Marrakech, a restaurant called Farmers is making a rather compelling case that the most interesting thing about a meal may happen long before the first course arrives.
And darling, this is not another restaurant sprinkling the words farm-to-table across a menu because it sounds attractive. Farmers has a relationship with a real agricultural project outside the city, and that relationship helps shape what appears on the plate.
Located in Guéliz, Marrakech’s contemporary urban district, Farmers is part of a changing dining scene where Moroccan ingredients and international culinary ideas are finding new ways to share the table. The restaurant opened in September 2024 at 96 Rue Mohammed el Beqal, inside Galerie El Beqal, a renovated Art Deco arcade.
But its story doesn’t begin at the restaurant’s front door. It begins about 30 minutes away.
The farm is the real reservation
Farmers is connected to Sanctuary Slimane, a 10-hectare permaculture farm founded by restaurateur Aziz Nahas. Nahas, who established the project with French restaurateur Benjamin Pastor, built the restaurant around a relationship with the land that goes beyond sourcing a few attractive vegetables.
According to the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s assessment of the restaurant, Sanctuary Slimane supplies Farmers with a range of ingredients, including fruit, vegetables, poultry, eggs, honey, olive oil and herbs.
There is also a network of regional producers. Walnuts, garlic, almonds and dates come from smaller farms, while rye and barley are milled in small batches for bread. Additional produce is sourced from farmers in the Atlas Mountains.
Now, that’s a dinner party conversation I can get behind.
Because we’ve become very good at talking about food as an experience. We discuss tasting menus, chef collaborations, beautiful interiors and the latest ingredient everyone suddenly seems to love. But the people and places responsible for producing that food can become supporting characters in the story.
Farmers puts them closer to center stage.
The restaurant’s sustainability assessment reports that less than 10 percent of its ingredients are imported. It also describes a system in which food waste returns to the farm for composting or animal feed.
Of course, sustainability is not a personality trait a restaurant can simply claim. It is a practice that has to be repeated, measured and maintained. But the connection between Farmers and Sanctuary Slimane gives the concept a tangible foundation.
The farm is not just a photograph on the restaurant’s website. It is part of the operation.
A menu with a mind of its own
So what happens when a restaurant lets the harvest have a say?
Chef Driss Aloui leads the kitchen, bringing techniques such as fermentation, preservation and slow roasting into a menu influenced by Moroccan ingredients and a broader international vocabulary.
The result is not easily tucked into one culinary category. Farmers isn’t simply serving traditional Moroccan dishes, nor is it trying to turn Marrakech into a backdrop for another international restaurant concept. Its identity is more interesting than that.
The menu moves with the seasons and the farm’s production. Both à la carte and tasting menus are shaped by what is available, according to MENA’s 50 Best.
And that changes the relationship between a restaurant and its guests.
We have grown accustomed to expecting our favorite dishes to remain exactly where we left them. We want the same pasta, the same dessert, the same beloved sauce whenever we return. But what if the menu has a little more freedom? What if the kitchen responds to the season instead of asking the season to accommodate the kitchen?
Previously reported dishes at Farmers have included monkfish with aromatic beurre blanc, lamb with olive-almond salsa, and glazed aubergine with tahini, smoked onions and black-garlic aioli. Other coverage has highlighted sea bream with harissa salsa, squash blossoms and Moroccan lamb tacos.
Those dishes are examples from earlier reporting, not a guarantee of what is being served today. The current menu is available through the restaurant’s official website.
Still, the philosophy is what catches my attention. A vegetable can be the star. A preservation technique can give an ingredient a second life. A harvest can inspire an entirely new menu.
Suddenly, dinner feels less like a transaction and more like a conversation with the season.
Guéliz has entered the conversation
Marrakech has never needed an introduction to food. Its markets, bakeries, spice merchants, neighborhood cafés and home kitchens have long made eating one of the city’s great cultural pleasures.
But there is another Marrakech worth discovering: the contemporary city, where design, architecture, hospitality and new culinary ideas are becoming part of the destination’s evolving identity.
Guéliz offers a different rhythm from the historic medina. Its streets, galleries, cafés and restaurants reflect a more modern side of the city, and Farmers fits naturally into that conversation.
The restaurant’s location inside Galerie El Beqal is also part of a larger hospitality vision. Nahas and Pastor previously launched Blue Ribbon, a bakery and café in the same arcade. Together, the projects suggest an interest in building food experiences around craft, ingredients and a sense of place.
And then there is the recognition.
Farmers appeared on TIME magazine’s World’s Greatest Places 2025 list, in a feature presented in partnership with Ally. In 2026, it was ranked No. 49 on MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants list and received the Sustainable Restaurant Award, sponsored by illy. The sustainability award involved an assessment by the Sustainable Restaurant Association.
Those are impressive credentials. But awards are only the beginning of the conversation. The more revealing question is what happens on an ordinary Tuesday, when the dining room fills, the kitchen gets busy and the farm’s philosophy has to work in real time.
That is where a restaurant’s values become more than a beautiful story.
Is knowing your food’s origin the new luxury?
For years, luxury dining has been associated with exclusivity: rare ingredients, elaborate presentations, hard-to-get reservations and prices that make the occasion feel important before the food even arrives.
But perhaps our definition of luxury is changing.
Maybe it is knowing who grew the ingredients. Maybe it is eating something at precisely the moment it is meant to be eaten. Maybe it is a restaurant that understands its relationship with the surrounding landscape and treats that relationship as part of its responsibility.
Farmers offers an appealing version of that idea. Its connection to Sanctuary Slimane gives the restaurant a story that begins outside the dining room and continues through the kitchen to the guest’s table.
Does that automatically make every meal extraordinary? Of course not. A thoughtful sourcing philosophy still has to result in delicious food, warm hospitality and an experience worth remembering.
But it does give us another reason to pay attention.
Because the next time someone asks where you had dinner in Marrakech, you could tell them about the beautiful arcade, the menu, the atmosphere and the chef. Or you could begin somewhere more unexpected.
You could tell them about the farm.
And isn’t that a more interesting way to start a dinner story?
Question of the Day
Would you choose a restaurant because it grows or sources its ingredients locally, even if the menu changes with the seasons? Or do you prefer knowing your favorite dish will always be waiting for you?
Stay in the Mood
From the tables worth traveling for to the people changing the way we experience food, Mood Magazine NYC is your guide to culture with a little more flavor. Discover more at moodmagazinenyc.org.
Editorial note: Restaurant details, sourcing practices and award information are based on Farmers’ official materials, MENA’s 50 Best and the Sustainable Restaurant Association. Previously reported dishes are identified as examples and may not appear on the current menu.
