Marrakech Restaurant: Lisa enjoys some Moroccan delights in the Adelaide City region of South Australia

On busy King William Road in Hyde Park there's a place where you can slip into a scene reminiscent of a Moroccan bazaar of Fez, Casablanca or Marrakesh.

Welcome to the Marrakech Restaurant - a little slice of Morocco in the leafy inner southern suburbs.

Head chef and owner is Mohamed Bartaouch, who came to Australia eleven years ago after meeting his Adelaide born wife in his home town of Marrakesh.

The decor is very authentic courtesy of local store "Inside Morocco", and the aromas and flavours? Well, they're courtesy of Mohamed's clever use of authentic herbs and spices in the kitchen.

Your can't eat in a Moroccan restaurant without a serve of couscous and Mohamed's is deliciously light and fluffy.

"And this is what we do with our hands, like this we open it up then it's not lumpy" Mohamed says

Part of the secret is steaming the couscous twice over vegetable broth.

"Going to leave it there until you actually see the steam coming up through the couscous, you can see the steam coming up. And you know that it's done."

And while that steams away, Mohamed turns his attention to another popular dish - Red Snapper with sharmoula and vegetables.

The sharmoula is a special paste which begins with garlic and fresh coriander ground in a mortar and pestle. To this Mohamed adds his own combination of flavours like coriander seeds, caraway, cummin and sweet paprika from a colourful and very aromatic smorgasbord of herbs and spices.

"We need a sprinkle of chilli"

"I like to do the chilli with my hands"

"This is the paste now"'

For truly authentic Moroccan taste, cooking in a tagine is a must - traditional earthenware pot with a conical lid which slowly cooks the dish in its own juices.

"When the tagine gets older, it just gets better because it absorbs all the flavours and stuff, you can smell the aroma of the food that has been cooked in there. The older it gets the better"

"What we do. Because I don't want my fish to get stuck on the bottom of the tagine, I'm going to put a layer of carrots on the bottom."

"Beautiful. A little platform. A little bit of olive oil."

"And you just rub in the your fish like this."

The fish goes into the tangine and is covered with a selection of vegetables including tomatoes, potatoes and capsicum.

"So just put the lid on and leave it to cook for 15-20 minutes and see how we go?"

While dinner is cooking, guests in the restaurant can lounge about or partake in some other traditional Moroccan customs. Come on the right night and Henna Artist, Vanessa Rosen will introduce you to an ancient form of body decoration.

"It varies from area, or from country as to how long they've been using it. Morocco particularly has a lot of very significant properties to it. Its been used as make-up particularly when they couldn't afford make-up or ladies in the country or rural areas didn't have make-up."

"For those of us who don't want permanent tattoos but you want something pretty for a limited time this is the answer. And I like the contrast between my palm being so light and the rest of my arm being so brown - it makes such a difference."

The Morrocan experience continues out in the courtyard where Kleo practices another tradition common in the markets of Marrakech. Fortune Telling

"The type of reading I'm doing today is the type of reading that's done in Morocco. It is virtually a lifestyle reading over the next 12 months."

Back i9nn the kitchen, Mohamed's fish tangine is ready.

"And we can present it with just a little bit of lemon just for the look. And a little bit of red and green like that."

"So Mohamed, the name for this in Moroccan again is? Tagines de here, Snapper is there, it's very moist and juicy and look at how it's cooked. Perfect."

Mohamed has spent the last several years running a Moroccan food catering business and he says he got tired of people asking where they could buy his food on a regular basis... so the Marrakesh Restaurant was born. And now he revels in sharing his food, culture and hospitality - even though some diners make him a tad homesick when they talk about their travels to his home city.

"That makes me homesick actually. People start talking to me about Marrakech, we went to the markets and people are making the wood works and the smell of the leather and stuff and I say you got to stop this you know. HaHa!"

But at the end of the night, it's the food that steals the show - a wonderful blend of country with a truly unique cuisine.

"Well, Moroccan cuisine I cannot really compare it to any other country because it's unique - it's Moroccan."

"It's a combination of all the civilisations that went through the country through the years. They all have influence on the cuisine. And they all blend up together and they make the Moroccan cuisine of today. It's a mix of Arab, Turkish, Spanish,French, Roman and so on you know."

You can taste it for yourself at the Marrakech Restaurant. It's at 66 King William St, Hyde Park. It's open from 6pm till midnight, Tuesday to Sunday. It pays to book.

And if you want the added experience of Henna Tatooing or Fortune Telling, book for Wednesday nights.

Marrakech Restaurant
66 King William St
Hyde Park
Bookings 8299 9901