Marrakech · Nightlife

The main square fills after sunset with food stalls, gnaoua musicians, storytellers and crowds, and stays busy until well past midnight. Nothing alcoholic is sold; stalls are numbered and priced per dish, and the rooftop cafés around the edge charge for a mint tea and the view down onto it.

Restaurant and club on Avenue Echouhada in Hivernage, running since 1999. The dining room serves 19:00-01:00 and the patio and club until 03:00, with nightly belly dance, gnaoua musicians and DJ sets. Book ahead; it is a dinner booking rather than a door queue.

The long-running club inside the Es Saadi resort on Rue Ibrahim El Mazini in Hivernage, in the old casino theatre. Open seven nights a week from 23:30 with resident and visiting DJs and live performers. Nothing much happens before 01:00.

Modern Moroccan restaurant at 1 Derb Aarjane in the medina, a few minutes from Jemaa el-Fna, with roof terraces looking over the spice square. Licensed and popular enough that you should reserve; it suits an early evening rather than a late one.

Most medina riads are unlicensed and the souks shut in the early evening, so the bars, clubs and late restaurants are concentrated in Gueliz and Hivernage, a 10-20 dirham petit-taxi ride from the square. Agree the fare or ask for the meter before you set off.