The number one city in the world for street food
On a culinary tour of this unsung capital, one writer was surprised to find a decidedly vibrant and bustling street food scene. He just needed to know where to look.
On a luminous morning in La Marsa, a whitewashed seaside suburb in Tunis, the chef and author Malek Labidi is escorting me around the Central Market. As we walk past stalls, lively vendors exclaim, “Bonjour, chef.” “I come here often,” she explains. If anyone knows about Tunisia’s cuisine, it’s Labidi. Trained at the Institut Paul Bocuse in France, she is a celebrated chef and former TV host who has published several books that champion the North African country’s regional cuisines, the latest being La Table de la Côte. Her work coincides with a new influx of tourists visiting Tunis, which is evident as I wander La Marsa’s sun-kissed corniche. (La Marsa is a part of a trio of linked coastal suburbs including historic Carthage and charming Sidi Bou Said that make an easy base for exploring the city.)
After the market, Labidi suggests spending time at Le Saf-Saf teahouse by La Marsa’s leafy main square. Here, like everywhere in the city, the street food grabs your attention first. “In Tunis, our street food is delicious and safe to eat,” she says, “but you need to know what to look out for.” Among the vendors is a stall where you can buy the famous, more-ish fricassé sandwich: a pillowy beignet stuffed with a sumptuously congealed mix of egg, tuna, olives, and harissa. In winter, Labidi also suggests lablabi, a spicy, thick chickpea stew served with rustic French bread, which is procured at nearby Fatoum, or at any snack bar where small brown bowls are stacked behind the counter.
Eventually, we settle at Bar Ezzit, a friendly hole-in-the-wall known for making the classic Tunisian mlewi: a paper-thin semolina flatbread stuffed, in this case, with tantalisingly smoky slata mechouia, a chopped and grilled vegetable dish often served as a starter in restaurants. “I left France for Tunisia because I missed the food and quality of the produce,” my guide tells me. “I think Tunis is one of the best cities to visit with an appetite.” Having lived here part-time over the past year, I have to agree – the restaurants and cuisine can compete with anywhere. Especially their more publicised North African neighbours.
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“It’s nothing like Morocco,” Labidi insists, as everyone does in Tunisia when you ask about the food – it’s a comparison they’re used to hearing. As a destination, Marrakech might be more popular, but Tunis has a more relaxed approach to eating out, and a better variety of dishes thanks to myriad influences. Tunisia’s most famous export is shakshuka; also a commonly used expression when things are “tangled up”– just like its history and cuisine.
“We’ve had many cultures and empires stop by, and we’ve absorbed them in our cooking.” Once the site of ancient Roman and Phoenician empires, Tunisia has been inhabited by the native Amazigh tribes, Vandals, Arabs, Ottomans, exiled Moriscos and Jews from Spain, Italians and the French, and has accommodated ingredients and flavours from them all in its cuisine (as well as in the architecture). The base is Mediterranean: olive oil, tuna, tomatoes, capers, and rigouta are staples. But most meals are complemented with a dollop of spicy harissa, Tunisia’s Unesco-protected pepper paste.
Pasta is also found on every restaurant menu (Tunisians are the world’s second-largest pasta consumer), often with a hotter twist on Italian classics like linguine alle vongole. In Tunis, the romantic port town of La Goulette once hosted a sizeable Italian community, and the city’s ice-cream parlours and seaside taverns are a glimpse of their past. But perhaps the Italians’ biggest contribution is naming Tunis’s emblematic dessert: the hot, fluffy bambalouni doughnut, which is dipped in powdered sugar and sometimes doused in honey. You can find them everywhere, but Labidi points to Beignets and Bambalouni in Sidi Bou Said, which has been in operation since 1932 and is by far the best.
Yet if there’s one dish the food explorer must look out for, it’s kafteji. This is a sizzling bowl of fried vegetables, diced up and mixed with fragrant spices and eggs, and eaten in humble workers’ cafés. “Jamie Oliver loved it when he came to Tunis,” Labidi says. I say goodbye to my gracious guide and grab a taxi to Tunis’s stupefyingly beautiful medina, where most of these cafés are located. As I get lost along the narrow streets and in the covered bazaars, where ornate mashrabiya balconies loom overhead, unassuming doors become portals into old-world eateries, like Chez Khairi, near the teeming Hafsia vintage-clothing market, or the legendary Dar Slah. Here, a hungry traveller can take a break from the sensory overload of the medina and soak up the real spirit of Tunis.
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On another afternoon, I catch up with Rafram Chaddad, a visual artist and self-taught chef. Among the commotion of the vast, chaotic Central Market, I spy old men cranking out bowls of kafteji for hungry customers. “How many other cities are blessed with so many varieties of incredible food?” Chaddad says, proudly. Chaddad, who is Tunisian Jewish, explores his community’s contributions through his writing, art and photography. In the multi-layered shakshuka of the country’s cuisine, Jewish communities have had some of the largest impact. The brik, the king of Tunisian street food, is a fried triangular filo pastry encasing mashed potato, parsley, seafood or meat, and a liquid egg yolk (the measure of a native is if you can avoid spillage – which I often fail at). Every restaurant serves brik, but it has roots in the Tunisian Jewish kitchen.
While Tunis’s Jewish restaurants have closed in recent decades, a victim of the slow exodus to France for better opportunities, Chaddad is preserving their cooking at his intimate Kshikshu supper club. Supper clubs, a vivid alternative to restaurants, are an authentic, sometimes upscale way for a visitor to experience local cuisine. “It’s a big trend,” says Chaddad. “It’s about pride in ourselves and our local ingredients. Plus, it’s hard to find certain home dishes at restaurants.” A lot of hype surrounds Boui Boui, whose banquet series offers a six-course meal by a guest chef with curated wines in a unique art space. These culinary happenings, which overlap with Tunis’s recent renaissance in art and culture, are led by a younger generation intent on exploring identity through food.
The same flock of creatives, many of whom have worked abroad, primarily in France, are now shaping the city’s flourishing restaurant scene. “There are some great upscale restaurants in Tunis,” says Labidi, when we catch up again. She cites Slim Douiri at Cult Bistro in La Marsa, a stylish eatery that regularly features on the region’s 50 Best listings (Douiri runs a supper club called La Table du Golfe, too). “He is doing incredible things reimagining Tunisian flavours with simple, fresh ingredients,” adds Labidi. “It feels like a trendy spot is opening each week.” There’s the neighbourhood café Les Indécis in Carthage, where you can sit with local artists and expats for the experimental fusion cuisine; the romantic, buzzing Casa Lico for pizza, and, my personal favourite, Tangerine, an uber-cool rooftop bar that serves small plates and cocktails to a fashionable crowd.
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Even so, it is the nostalgic, generationally approved restaurants that make Tunis so special. Known as the “institutions” by locals, they are famous for their warm atmospheres, traditional settings, and tempting home-cooking. Their names are familiar to everyone in Tunis, and are sometimes signposted on streets like archaeological sites. “Le Punique in Carthage is my go-to,” says Chaddad. I have spent several memorable evenings there, with friends in the airy courtyard, marvelling over its legendary octopus kamounia (a hearty cumin stew perfect after a day exploring Carthage’s ruins). My girlfriend, who is from Tunis, swears by the unfussy Weld Moufida. And Labidi points to Le Golfe, the most emblematic of them all: a long-established beach-front restaurant with an air of jet-set glamour about it, specialising in fish dishes like sea bass carpaccio.
A few other favourite spots are tucked into the winding streets of Sidi Bou Said. This touristy artists’ village, the subject of dreamlike paintings by Paul Klee, is perched on a hill and often compared to Santorini for its postcard-like whitewashed buildings and blue doors. A number of family-friendly institutions are a joy to visit in this languorous town – not least because they offer views over the sweeping Gulf of Tunis, the jewel of empires, and where Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca departed for Europe. Time stops at nearby Dar Zarrouk, with its large garden awash with the scent of rose, orange blossom and jasmine. Here, you can tuck into stellar local fare and syrah wines from Cap Bon.
Opposite, in a grand Tunisian townhouse, is Au Bon Vieux Temps, which greets customers with photographs of famous customers, from ’60s actors to former French president Jacques Chirac. It has a delicately seasoned harissa and fish couscous plate, alone worth the trip. But I mostly think back to the vista from the second floor, looking out over Bou Kornine, the twin-horned mountain range across the bay, a sight steeped in local myth. It’s one of my favourite views in the world.
Labidi sums it up best: “In Tunis, we’re fortunate. When we dine, we can linger by the sea or among historic sites,” she says. It’s a point I take to heart as the sun sets over the mountains and I ponder another glass of wine, or a sticky bambalouni for a nighttime stroll around Sidi Bou Said. Tunis may be embracing change, but it’s this ancient city’s timeless spirit – alive in its taverns, street stalls, and markets – that gets the appetite going.
Where to stay
Following a surge of tourism to the Tunisian capital, the spotlight is back on its hotels, including a number of resort favourites situated on the Mediterranean coastline. Beautifully renovated luxury guesthouses, often in historic buildings and homes, are another unique way to immerse yourself in the city’s culture – without compromising on comfort.
Maison Dedine, in Sidi Bou Said, was once a grand family residence that has transformed into a stylish boutique hotel. The highlight here is its stunning infinity pool that overlooks the Gulf of Tunis, as well as the comfy five rooms decorated with artisan-made furniture and Arabic art. Also in Sidi Bou Said is the five-star La Villa Bleue. Designed by renowned architect Tarak Ben Miled, the stunning rooms are built in the Arab-Andalusian style and have breathtaking views across the coast, which can be enjoyed from the secluded cliffside terrace.
If you would prefer to be in the heart of the medina, you will be spoilt for choice for historic boutique hotels. Dar Ben Gacem is an inviting space that blends traditional design with modern touches. Rooms are adorned with Amazigh rugs and Tunisian art pieces, offering a sense of seclusion and style as you discover this historic part of the city. You will be staying in an authentic Tunisian building, and some of the proceeds are reinvested in restoring the medina’s architecture. Nearby, the glamorous Dar El Jeld is easy to miss, but impossible to forget. A yellow door in a narrow alley opens into a lavish hotel with two restaurants – both are exceptional. The spa here is one of its crowning features, an oasis of peace that relaxes you after a day of exploring before you enjoy a traditional dinner in the historic courtyard or on the rooftop overlooking the city – or an evening at the well-stocked bar.
For those looking to add a resort theme to their trip, there are numerous sea-front hotels outside the city centre. The Four Seasons has an outpost here, with an elegant pool area and a private beach for guests, as well as other facilities. Rooms are spacious and modern and the restaurant serves gourmet versions of Tunisian classics. For something slightly different, head down the coast for The Residence Tunis where traditional decor is married with the contemporary luxuries of a resort. There’s also an 18-hole golf course, considered to be one of the most beautiful championship courses in North Africa.
This story is from the latest issue of Travel + Luxury magazine.
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