If the Grand Café de la Poste is the grandmother of Marrakech hospitality – a stalwart of its French roots and complex political history – then Bô Zin is most definitely its young, rebellious grandchild: a symbol of the new generation.
Located around 20 mins from the medina and old Marrakech, Bô Zin sits by itself in a modern complex on the road towards Ourika. This less-than-central location doesn’t stop hundreds of locals and tourists flocking to it every weekend, eager to be seen at the place to be seen. Indeed, when we arrive we’re asked if we’re the journalists they’re expecting from Vogue (we’ll take the compliment).
Bô Zin feels like entering a nightclub, from the red carpet entrance with bouncer to the sultry interior and loud house music. And as the night progresses, the boundaries between nightclub and restaurant are blurred, with diners getting up from their meals to dance to live West African drum music playing in time with the DJ.
This mixing of elements is something Bô Zin does very well. The restaurant area in which we were seated is partially open-air, making it impossible to tell whether you’re indoors or outdoors. In fact, the entire side of the bar area can be opened, transforming it into a huge outdoor terrace to cool down on those balmy Marrakech summer nights.
The fact that it’s partially outdoors also means that smoking is permitted while eating dinner, giving the place a strange, nostalgic New York-in-the-90s vibe.
The menu at Bô Zin is Asian infusion with emphasis on high quality fish, meats, and an extensive drinks list. We start with cocktails, and it would be remiss of us not to have begun with the two flagship drinks: the Bô – gin, cointreau, flower of elderberry, agave syrup and lemon juice, and the Zin – gin, elderberry liqueur, grapefruit, rose, lemon juice, agave and orgeat syrup.
In line with its Asian influence, the menu features an entire section of dim sum varieties. We decide to start with a mix of the highlights, including peking duck, lobster, beef curry, and a shrimp-pineapple-chicken combination. The dumplings taste as good as any you’d find in Chinatown and pair well with the floral tang of the cocktails.
We move on to wine for our main course, and return to a favourite since discovering the wines of the Moroccan vineyards: Volubilia’s Gris La Zouina. It’s a vin gris (grey wine) – not quite blush, but a very pale rosé produced through minimal maceration of the grapes. It’s definitely a summer wine, but dining at Bô Zin feels like spending a summer night on a terrace, so we allow ourselves.
For mains, I choose the beautifully emotive ‘Gazelle qui Pleure’ (the crying gazelle) – a nod to the Crying Tiger from Thai cuisine. It’s a fillet of beef marinated in tamarind and coconut sauce and accompanied by roast potatoes. We also order the mi-cuit teriyaki salmon fillet, served with pickled cucumber and the most delicious garlic fried rice accompaniment. The meat and fish are well-cooked and the flavours authentic.
Dessert is delicate perfection: coconut ice cream and fresh mango in coconut milk, offset in sweetness by a peppery sesame wafer.
Take it out of its Marrakech setting and Bô Zin could be anywhere in the world. It’s Asian-influenced but with a decidedly Western feel, and even its clientele doesn’t give away much about its setting. The tables are occupied by people of all ages and nationalities – the vast majority of whom appear to be locals, expats or Franco-Moroccans as opposed to tourists. The Moroccan receptionist in our riad tells me that it’s her favourite place to go with her friends at the weekend. There are groups of women in their 40s sharing bottles of wine and dancing – something we haven’t seen at many of the places we’ve visited in Morocco.
The restaurant itself is also impressive. We’re visiting in low season post-Covid when there are plenty of places to sit but the atmosphere is still festive. As we’re shown round the complex and its many different areas, we’re told that Bô Zin can serve up to 400 covers on a busy summer evening. The photos we’ve seen of high season show a sprawling party sweeping from the bar to the Asian-style gardens, which are an extension of the restaurant with numerous seating areas under canopies, fire pits, and ponds surrounded by bamboo.
Bô Zin is synonymous with a young, liberal, high-end Marrakech that likes to party. It’s unashamedly ostentatious and unapologetically loud, and it manages to achieve something that many places don’t: a great night out where the food is also very good.
Even in low season there’s a buzz in this place. For the last two pandemic-filled years the glitterati of Marrakech have been kept at home and now they’re finally able to get out again. And their first stop will undoubtedly be Bô Zin.
We ate
Mixed dim sum (Peking duck, lobster, beef curry, salmon, shrimp chicken pineapple) – 180dh for 5 dumplings
Seafood dim sum (Shrimp, cod, lobster, crab, salmon) – price as above
La Gazelle qui Pleure – 280dh
Teriyaki mi-cuit salmon – 260dh
Coconut milk ice cream with mango and sesame wafer – 140dh
We drank
Le Bô cocktail – 180dh
Le Zin cocktail – 180dh
Volubilia Gris La Zouina
http://www.bo-zin.com
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