Chez Ali Marrakech FAQ: Prices, Times, Transfer and Menus

A dinner show in the Palmeraie of Marrakech, running every evening since 1982. Guests dine under caidal tents — the large decorated tents of Moroccan hospitality — while folk troupes parade between the tables. After dinner everyone moves to an open-air arena the size of a football pitch for the Fantasia, a charge of horsemen that ends in a single volley of gunfire.

Both, and you do not choose between them. A complete Moroccan dinner is served at your table by waiters in traditional dress, and the show runs through the meal and then continues in the arena. The evening programme sets out the three acts.

At Ouahat Sidi Brahim, in the Palmeraie of Marrakech, postcode 40000. It sits outside the city centre, in the palm grove, which is why almost everyone arrives by car rather than on foot.

The restaurant opens every evening at 8 pm and the evening ends around midnight. Counting dinner, the show and the Fantasia, allow about four hours.

Yes, every evening of the week.

We are Traces Berbères Voyages, a Marrakech travel agency and authorised reseller of the Chez Ali dinner show. We book your table and include the return transfer from your hotel or riad in the price. Our contact details are here.

€60 per person through us, whichever of the three menus you choose, with the return transfer from your hotel or riad in Marrakech included at no extra cost. The full detail is on the menus and prices page.

The complete dinner — soup, main course, couscous, dessert, mint tea and pastries — the whole show including the Fantasia, and the return transfer between your hotel in Marrakech and the restaurant. Drinks are not included.

The dirham prices are the restaurant's own menu prices, from 400 MAD to 700 MAD, without drinks and without any transport. Our €60 package bundles one menu with the return transfer, so you have nothing else to organise. Both are listed side by side on the menus and prices page.

No. Menus are served without drinks. At the restaurant you can add a drinks package at 250 MAD per person, or take the podium terrace at 300 MAD per person, which includes unlimited drinks from the start of the show.

A seating area facing the arena, charged by the restaurant at 300 MAD per person, with unlimited drinks served from the moment the show begins. It is booked in addition to your menu.

Children are welcome and usually spend the evening watching the horses. Tell us their ages when you send your booking on WhatsApp and we confirm the rate for them with the restaurant.

In order: harira, the Moroccan soup, served with dates and lemon; then the main course, a tagine or half a mechoui lamb roasted over a wood fire; then seven-vegetable couscous; then jawhara, a milk pastilla; and finally mint tea with Moroccan pastries.

The Tagine menu if you want the classic — beef tagine with prunes or chicken tagine with lemon. The Mechoui menu if you want the festive dish, half a lamb roasted over wood and served with Moroccan salads. The vegetarian menu replaces the meat with a vegetable tagine or an omelette. All three cost €60 and all three include the couscous, the jawhara and the mint tea.

Harira is the Moroccan soup that opens the meal, here served with dates and lemon. Jawhara is the dessert: a milk pastilla, made of crisp warqa pastry layered with a scented milk cream and almonds.

Yes. Vegetarian dishes are prepared on request, and our vegetarian package includes a vegetable tagine or an omelette. Tell us when you book so the kitchen is warned.

Tell us about them in your WhatsApp message when you book and we pass them on to the kitchen with your table. Do not wait until you arrive: the dinner is cooked for the whole room.

Yes, every day, with fresh produce and nothing frozen. The kitchen was built on the scale of the place — it can serve up to 3,000 guests in an evening — and the waiters who serve you are happy to explain each dish.

A line of horsemen in ceremonial dress gallops down the arena and, at their leader's signal, fires a volley of blank rounds. The charge is successful only if you hear a single shot. Moroccans call it tbourida; UNESCO inscribed it in 2021. We explain it in detail in our guide to the Fantasia.

Three acts. A welcome ceremony as you arrive — a mounted escort, a hurdle race, rose petals, the Ali Baba cave and an exhibition on the horse and the Fantasia. Then dinner under the tents, with the troupes parading between the tables. Then the arena: oriental dancer, stunt riders, the flying carpet, the parade of all the troupes and the final charge. Full running order on the evening programme page.

Around ten, each from a different region: Zayane from Khenifra, Tiskiwine from Amizmiz, Kelaa M'Gouna, Gnawa, Imintanout, ahwach from Ouarzazate, ahwach from the Ourika valley, the dekka of Marrakech, Aït Ben Haddou and guedra. Our guide to Moroccan folklore explains how to tell them apart.

Dinner is served under the caidal tents, sheltered. The Fantasia takes place outdoors, in an open-air arena lit by floodlights and closed with fireworks.

Yes, at the start of the evening: riders escort the arriving cars, a hurdle race is run before dinner, and an exhibition on the horse and the Fantasia stands on the grounds. During the show itself the arena is kept for the riders. If horses are what brings you, read our guide to the Barb horse in Morocco.

No. The evening is music, dance and horsemanship — there is nothing to translate. Our team answers you in French or English before and during your booking.

The Fantasia happens at night, under floodlights, with horses at a gallop and a great deal of gunpowder smoke. A phone will struggle; a camera that copes with low light and fast movement will do far better. Dinner under the tents is much easier to photograph.

Yes. The return transfer between your hotel or riad in Marrakech and the restaurant is included in each of the three €60 packages, with nothing to pay to the driver. The transfer page explains how it works.

At your hotel or riad in Marrakech. Give us the name and address when you book and we confirm the pick-up time with you.

Yes. Your driver stays on site for the whole evening and takes you back to your hotel once the Fantasia is over. You never have to look for a taxi at midnight in the Palmeraie.

Chez Ali is in the Palmeraie, outside the city centre. The exact journey depends on where you are staying and on the evening traffic, so your driver sets the departure time to get you there for the start of the evening — we confirm that time with you before the day.

The free transfer covers hotels and riads in Marrakech itself. If you are staying further out — in the Agafay desert, in the Ourika valley or in another city — send us your address on WhatsApp and we will tell you what is possible.

Yes. If you prefer to arrive by your own car or taxi, tell us and we will simply book the table for you.

Send a message on WhatsApp to +212 661 454 738 with your date, the number of people, the menu you want and the name of your hotel, or use the booking page. Someone answers every day. We confirm your table and your pick-up time.

Send us your date and we confirm availability the same day. Evenings in high season and around public holidays fill up first, so the earlier you write, the more choice you have.

Yes. Groups are part of the ordinary life of the place, and Chez Ali also has an 800 m² reception hall for 500 to 600 people, used for weddings, conferences, seminars and galas. See the events hall page, then send us your dates and numbers.

Tell us in your booking message and we pass it on to the restaurant so the team knows. Celebrations are common there — it is a place built for them.

The grounds include gardens, tents and an arena, with distances to walk between them. Tell us on WhatsApp what your party needs and we will check with the restaurant before you commit.

We impose no dress code. One practical point: once the sun goes down, evenings in the Palmeraie get cool even in summer, and the Fantasia is watched outdoors — bring something warm.

Ali Benfallah, a Marrakech guide, who bought a plot of desert land in the Palmeraie and raised the first Berber tent there in 1982, then built the walls, the arena, the stables and the kitchen. A museum on the site tells the story, and so does our page about him.

Large enough that its scale is part of the show: an arena the size of a football pitch, a kitchen built to serve up to 3,000 guests, stables, lodgings for the artists, and an 800 m² reception hall.