Palais Amani is a restored riad within Fez’s medina. Rooms differ in size and layout, but carved details, patterned surfaces and the planted courtyard give the property a coherent character.
Fez el-Bali and Chouara tannery
Fez el-Bali is a dense, largely car-free network of narrow streets. Workshops, food stalls and small markets sit beside residential doors and religious buildings, making a guide useful for specific sites even though wandering remains part of the experience.
Chouara tannery is one of the medina’s best-known working spaces. The terraces of surrounding leather shops overlook the dyeing pits, where hides are processed using physically demanding methods. The smell is strong; shopkeepers often offer mint leaves while visitors observe the work from above.
Eating at Palais Amani
Eden at Palais Amani serves breakfast, lunch and dinner around the courtyard. Breakfast combined bread, fruit, yoghurt, eggs, honey, olives and a changing Moroccan dish. At lunch and dinner, the menu focused on tagines, vegetables, soups and desserts, with Moroccan cooking presented alongside some French influences.
A Moroccan cooking class
The Fez Cooking School experience began in the food souk with a chef and interpreter. We tasted bessara, a fava-bean soup seasoned with olive oil, garlic, chilli and cumin, then bought spices, vegetables and herbs for the class.
Back on the Palais Amani rooftop, we prepared chicken tagine and zaalouk, an aubergine and tomato dish. Cooking made the market visit more useful: ingredients we had just seen in the medina became part of a meal we could understand step by step.
Palais Amani can also arrange excursions beyond Fez. For one option, see the separate guide to Chefchaouen.
The stay and activities were hosted by Palais Amani. The account and opinions remain my own.