15-20 of us went here for a friends dinner. We paid about $40-$45 per head and had lots of wine and the most amazing dinner. The staff were friendly and there was so much food it was great. No one left hungry. We all had a great time and loved everything about the whole night! Well Done guys. Looking forward to trying the takeaway pizza which i have heard from friends is delicious!!!!

Just tried yesterday, we ordered some tapas (grilled scallops and prawns), the scallops were rubbish, no salt and just steamed and not even cooked.
Then we went for the tajine (supposed to be the speciality in a Moroccan restaurant!!), my wide took the vegetarian , I took the chicken. The vegetarian was basically a plate a potatoes (dried out boiled), the sauce was from the lamb tajine (interesting for a vegetarian), never seen a worse dish than this .. 27$ for 1 boiled potato and a bit a tomato sauce!!! The chicken Tajine was not much better.. basically, either the cook is from Mongolia, either he does not care about what he is serving.
Overall, a huge disappointment considering we love Moroccan food!!!

Just checked out this new restaurant the other night and thought I would be a critic for the day.

First impressions: The place had a warm and relaxing atmousphere with modest decor. The owner was around and told us a little about the place since it was new.

I ordered the lamb shish and I must say it was delish! The lamb was very tender and juicy. The other dishes including the steak looked great.

I quite like trying new wines so I asked for a recommendation and was told to try the Israeli red pinot noir. This was a very delightful wine and I must go back and find out where I can get some (I have rung around but noone seems to have it!)

If I could change one thing I think it would be great to add ghoriba shortbread to the menu as snacks/dessert?.

Overall we really enjoyed ourselves at this place and would definitely be back.

As a frequent visitor to the Jervois Road eateries I decided to pick up a takeaway from the newly opened Marrakesh to give me an idea if its worth a sit down meal. I phoned ahead to talked through the menu deciding on the lamb kebab which i was told would be ready in 20 minutes.

I arrived to pick up the meal and due to a few language/accent difficulties my bill was 19.95 not 9.95 but what the hey, who could resist the temptation of the most expensive kebab in jervios – that has to be pretty special doesn’t it?

Sadly it was not, I was so underwhealmed that some of the dish is uneaten while i write this, given that I was quite hungry at the time that fact is testament to its poor quality. There may be some truth to the fact that Kiwis dont like traditional moroccan food and i’m no expert having had my eating experiences in morocco cut short by to a sudden stomach bug but average quality of the meat, the smattering of dry vegetables and vile rancid sauce white sauce will keep me and anyone who I talk to about restaurants away from this sub par expensive shop.

This is by far the worst restaurant we have been to in the last five years.

Our first mistake was thinking that a restaurant called Marrakesh might actually have authentic Moroccan food. The sign outside advertising pizza and pasta should have steered us away but our hunger took over and we entered anyway. Once inside it was deliciously warm so we stayed.

There were only a couple of dishes on the menu that even sounded remotely Moroccan…one of them being a vegetarian tagine. My partner and I ordered a tagine each and then had a starter of Moroccan bread and moussaka. When the starters arrived we were unimpressed. The moussaka was a blob of eggplant and tomatoes smothered in cheese. The Moroccan bread was a baguette sliced into parts with butter and garlic. Not reminiscent of the flat Moroccan bread we had in Morocco.

When the mains arrived we were pretty much devastated. We were served a big dish of couscous and a bowl with carrots and potatoes swimming in what appeared to be chicken broth. It was literally vegetable soup with overcooked vegetables in a broth that was definitely not vegetarian. This was not an authentic steaming, rich, vege tagine from Morocco.

We mentioned our disappointment to the waitress who then relayed our entire story to the chef. To make a long story short the waitress told us we would not be charged for our tagines. When the owner came in he was told about our complaint. His excuse boiled down to the fact that Kiwis don’t like spicy food and wouldn’t like a real tagine. Apparently he’s not aware of all the spicy Asian food Kiwis love to consume. He brought us out a tiny dish of something that was supposed to be real Moroccan food (something with eggplant) and it was delicious. Then he brought us out a tasting of harissa…I guess to prove that it was hot but that didn’t stop us from trying it.

At the end of the evening we were charged for our moussaka and two tagines. When we asked about the tagines the waitress explained that because the owner offered us a couple of little dishes (that we didn’t ask for) we all of a sudden had to pay for them. It as obvious the owner was not keen on letting us go without paying for them even after she had told us we wouldn’t have to.

You can be sure we’ll never go back and we’ll tell our friends about our experience.