Some houses do more than serve meals: they cross eras and keep the memory of a city. Founded in 1960 in the heart of the medina of Tangier, Mamounia Palace is one of them. And behind the house there is a man: Boubker Tazi, its founder, one of the pioneers of Tangier tourism.
A period document, found in our archives, tells his story better than we could.
A founder interviewed by the Tangier press
The year is 1967. In its edition for the week of 26 August to 2 September, the Tangier newspaper Norte — which then billed itself as “the only Moroccan newspaper published in Spanish” — ran an interview with Mr Boubker Tazi, owner of Mamounia Palace, under the heading “Los tangerinos opinan” (“Tangerines have their say”). The portrait beside the article shows an elegant man with a confident gaze.
At the time, tourism was a “new and exciting” industry, only just beginning to open up in Tangier. Our founder already spoke of it with the assurance of a man who had seen it coming: he declared himself frankly satisfied with how the season was developing, even if the early days, he admitted, had left something to be desired.
A vision: Tangier as a year-round destination
What strikes you, reading his words again, is how modern his vision was. Mr Tazi was not only thinking of his house; he was thinking of his city. He wanted the season to stretch out until Tangier became a destination for the whole year.
To get there, he imagined grand winter festivities — an appealing programme able to draw visitors out of season. An idea ahead of its time, from a restaurateur who understood, as early as the 1960s, that Tangier hospitality could shine twelve months a year.
The article closes on a telling image: a group of tourists stepping into the salons of his restaurant. From its very first years, Mamounia Palace was already an address of prestige in the heart of the medina.
A family story, still being written
Mamounia Palace has remained what it always was: a family restaurant. To step through its door is to step into more than sixty years of Tangier history — and to taste, quite literally, a piece of the medina's heritage.
Next time you wander the lanes of the medina, push our door open. You are not merely sitting down in a restaurant: you are taking a seat in a house that has welcomed travellers from all over the world since 1960.