Announcing the Winner of MENA's 50 Best Sustainable Restaurant Award

The awards ceremony for the fifth edition of MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants was held last night at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental in Abu Dhabi. As official sustainability audit partner across 50 Best’s entire portfolio of awards, our team was once again proud to evaluate the entries for the Sustainable Restaurant Award, with Farmers Marrakech announced as the winner.

Farmers Marrakech is a farm-to-table restaurant in the city’s Gueliz neighbourhood. With their own their own 10-hectare permaculture farm, Sanctuary Slimane, just a 30-minute drive from the restaurant, sourcing is where Farmers Marrakech really shines. Here, soil health is a priority, with over 50 raised beds planted among shady trees. Employing 20 people itself, the farm functions as the main supplier for the restaurant, growing fresh fruits and vegetables, poultry, eggs, honey, olive oil and fresh herbs to organic standards, providing a local, farm-to-table experience for guests. With such a wealth of flavour-packed produce on offer, it’s no wonder the menu always includes a good selection of plant-rich dishes. Many of the plants grown here (such as mint, basil and lemon) are used in the kitchen to create their own ice creams, jams and sauces.

To support both natural biodiversity and diversity on the plate, the farm often grows multiple types of the same produce (for example, 15 different types of lemon), including less-common varieties. Operating as a circular system, organic waste from the restaurant is sent back to the farm every day to be used for composting and as food for the animals living on the farm, which include chickens, ducks, goats and sheep.

Outside of Sanctuary Slimane, the team at Farmers Marrakech works closely with other suppliers to ensure that all meats, fruits and vegetables are traceable to the farm of origin; under 10% of their ingredients are imported. They favour local producers where possible, including partnerships with small-scale farms to source walnuts, garlic, almonds and dates. They buy rye and barley from a farm on the outskirts of Marrakech, milling the grains themselves in small batches to keep the flour as fresh as possible for baking their sourdough bread. The restaurant also works with a local guide who helps them to buy fresh produce in bulk from farmers in the Atlas mountains, as soon as it’s harvested.

Staff are offered regular training sessions, including biweekly wine training with the sommelier, visits to the farm and a mentorship programme. A dedicated person is employed specifically to cook balanced and nourishing staff meals, ensuring they are well-fed while at work. The restaurant also partners with a local cooking school to host internships and stages.

They work in collaboration with ceramists to create their own bespoke dishes, bowls and many decorative objects for the farm. Farmers Marrakech have also switched to all glass recyclable bottles, and now offer filtered water for guests to reduce packaging. They work in partnership with Beldi Country Club, which collects used glass bottles from the restaurant on a regular basis and recycles them to create new items.

Our CEO, Juliane Caillouette Noble, said, “Congratulations to Farmers Marrakech for an outstanding submission across the board. The central story for us was how they source their ingredients, with their own permaculture farm acting as the restaurant’s main supplier and often growing less-common varieties of fruit and vegetables. When they do source from elsewhere, their approach is diligent, locally focused and seasonal, working with small farms in the area to buy everything from walnuts and garlic to barley and rye, and partnering with a local guide to buy fresh produce in bulk from Atlas mountain farmers as soon as it’s harvested.” Well done to the entire team!

Read more about Farmers Marrakech on their website. You can learn more about our work with 50 Best here.    

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Lead photo from the Farmers Marrakech Instagram page.