There's a quieter, more elegant Agadir that doesn't get nearly enough credit. The city has a small constellation of properly run rooms — a beach bar at sunset, a serious jazz club, a sophisticated cocktail bar inside a French bistro, a hotel with a cabaret over the pool, and a new fine-dining theatre that has, this year, raised the whole tenor of an Agadir evening. I've spent great evenings in all of them. I want to take you through them properly, because they deserve it.
A note before we start. Morocco is a Muslim country, and alcohol is served in licensed hotels, dedicated bars and a handful of specific restaurants. What that means in practice is that Agadir's drinking culture is concentrated in a small number of carefully run rooms, each of which has earned its licence through quality and care. The curation is one of the city's quiet strengths. There aren't many places — and the good ones are very good indeed.
Nazka - by Buddha Bar - The View Hotel
For: sunset, the long view, a slow first drink.
The beach bar with the view that gave the hotel its name. The View opens in the late afternoon and stays open until late — and the view is the whole Bay of Agadir, the long curve of beach, the cliff at Oufella with Allah · Al-Watan · Al-Malik — God, Country, King — glowing white above the bay, and the lights of the city coming up one by one as the sky turns.
What they've got right is the timing. You come at around five. You order a drink. The sun does what it's meant to do. The staff know not to hurry you. An hour later you order another.
The cocktails are properly made — a decent Negroni, lots of fresh fruit mocktails, and a Vodka Martini that comes with delicious Moroccan olives. The wine list is thoughtful, with several Moroccan wines worth ordering on principle. The kitchen from the View offer a range of cuisines - the snack of Potatos Al Chimmichuri deserve a special mention - and the vibe is Latin.
There is, genuinely, no better simple pleasure in Agadir than watching the sun drop into the Atlantic from this spot on the beach - perhaps on a sun lounger or cabana, with a drink in your hand and someone good opposite you. Later at night, the fire pits come alive - and the beats start - resident DJs, playing Afro-Latin rhythms. Created by the people of Buddha Bar fame (and who didn't have a Buddha Bar CD in the 2000s?) It's a little pricey, but the location is 5 star - and the services matches. So enjoy!
How to dress: Smart casual. Linen trousers. A collared shirt. The Moroccan evening can get cool enough for a jacket. (A fez is optional. I wear mine.)
LOV at La Suite
For: dinner with cabaret, a serious cocktail, adults-only.
La Suite is in Founty, adults-only, and built around a swimming pool with a cabaret stage suspended over the water. You dine on the LOV terrace facing the stage. There's a separate afrobeats club inside for later if house music is your thing.
You're handed a green passport-shaped cocktail menu and a prop British passport — from Bond, James of course. The Rosapicane (120 dh) is a real Moroccan treat: harissa-infused tequila, daghmous cactus honey, hibiscus and lemon — heat, floral and sweet in a martini glass. (Po*n Star Martinis are 150dh).
The food holds up. The signature LOV trough is a long wooden sharing platter — prawns in kadaïf, chicken yakitori, grilled calamari, Camembert, fried fish bites — laid across the table on legs. The kitchen runs to aged steaks from a glass cabinet, Beef Wellington, salmon Wellington, sea bass cooked three ways. Proper Moroccan wine list (Volubilia, Sahari Reserve, Château Roslane AOC) alongside the French.
The bar wall is hung with disembodied eyes in oval frames and real cactus paddles between the bottles. On the way to the terrace there's a button on a stand: PRESS FOR SHISHA. Press it. Someone arrives.
LOV at La Suite Hotel Agadir, Founty. Cocktails 120–150 dh, sharing platters from 220 dh. Cabaret nightly. Adults only
La Buvette
For: the best meal in Agadir most tourists never find.
The locals' best-kept secret - I almost feel guilty letting this one out. La Buvette is family-run, open since 1965, attached to the Uniprix supermarket on Avenue Hassan II — a few streets back from the beach strip, which is exactly why most tourists miss it and most Agadirois don't.
La Buvette in French means a refreshment bar - the casual drinks counter you'd find at a university, a swimming pool, a village hall. It's the most modest possible name for a restaurant. Which is part of the joke. It's like calling a Mayfair Restaurant "The Caff".
Inside is a proper French bistro: white-shirted, black-waistcoated waiters who actually know what they're doing, a placemat printed with a line drawing of the building, a navy menu, salt and pepper in matching ceramic. The food is short and serious — a 15-hour-cooked beef cheek with parmesan-crusted zita gratin, lamb fillet on mushroom duxelles, a Paris-Brest praline trio called Le Craquelin, and Le Citron — a long shard of caramelised feuilleté laid against piped lemon-and-basil cream, finished with gold leaf, that I genuinely think about when I'm not there. Mains run 175–210 dh.
La Buvette, Immeuble Uniprix, Avenue Hassan II, Agadir. +212 6 61 06 10 67. Mon–Sat 10am–9pm.
Blue Note
For: live music, late-night, properly mixed crowd.
Blue Note sits on Boulevard du 20 Août, next to the Vallée des Oiseaux, billed as a restaurant-bar-and-jazz-club and actually delivering on all three. The website says two sets a night at 8pm and 10:30pm, but on a Wednesday the door told us the music doesn't start till 10 — so check before you commit to an early dinner there. Open every day from 5pm till 2am. A house band plays a mix of English, French and Moroccan songs, joined often enough by a local guitarist the regulars call "the little magician." Mondays are jam night.
The crowd is genuinely mixed — Moroccan couples, tourists, music heads, all there for the same thing. Staff get named in reviews more often than the cocktails do; if Momo, Houssan, Simo or Abdeljalil are working, you're in good hands. The house line is that they pour the coldest beers in Morocco, and they've leaned into the joke long enough that it's basically true.
Manage your expectations on the food — it's bar food, pizza and pasta and a sharing platter, fine when the band's playing but not the reason you're there. The bar stools aren't comfortable. It can get smoky. Service is quicker on quiet nights than packed ones. None of this matters once the music starts.
Karaoke kicks in late. Arrive early if you want a seat.
Blue Note Agadir, Boulevard du 20 Août (next to Vallée des Oiseaux). Daily 5pm–2am.
Coup de Foudre
For: the big night out. Anniversaries, first dates, impressing parents.
Coup de Foudre — *love at first sight* — opened on the seafront at the Front de Mer end of the Corniche, and it has genuinely raised what an Agadir evening can be. It is not a bar in the way the previous three are bars. It is a full evening: fine dining with a proper cabaret unfolding around you between courses. Singers, dancers, fire performers, oriental dancers, occasionally an acrobat. The lights soften as night settles, the music rises, and the room becomes a slow theatre.
I went sceptical, I should admit. I left having had one of the best evenings I've had in Agadir in years.
The cocktail programme is the most ambitious in the city by some margin. The menu reads like it was designed by someone with proper bar credentials, and the execution matches. *Mziouda* — tequila with clarified dragon fruit and habanero, finished with Himalayan salt. *Verdure* — gin, cucumber, basil, rose water, vegan foam, a citrus mist. *Mandarin Drops* — sesame oil-washed vodka with mandarin oleo saccharum. A properly made *Negroni*. *La Gazelle* with raspberry, lemon, orange blossom water, and silky egg white. All at 150 dirhams. The non-alcoholic *Sans Alcool* list is taken just as seriously: *French Kiss*, *Lavender Lemonade*, the genuinely unusual *Greenland* with smoked amaretto and saffron at 100 dirhams. This is the level of cocktail writing you find in London or Paris, sitting on the Atlantic in Agadir. Watching Lily the bartender work - smooth cuts and an elegant professionalism on the bar was entralling.
The cabaret is the heart of what makes Coup de Foudre special. Throughout the evening, performers appear in the room — not on a separate stage but among the tables. The first time it happens you stop your conversation. By the third you're absorbed. This is how cabaret used to work in Paris in the 1920s, and it is genuinely thrilling to see it done properly in Agadir.
The food is international with Moroccan and Lebanese touches — refined, well-presented, paced for the long evening rather than rushed. The room itself was custom-built for this address: velvet, candle-lit, warm reds and pinks, a bar shelf properly stocked, lipstick-print trays that make every drink feel a small occasion. Not a converted hotel space, not a generic restaurant fit-out — a venue conceived as theatre.
This is the place to take someone you want to impress, and the place to go alone if you want a drink at the bar and a seat from which to watch a properly choreographed Moroccan evening unfold around you.
*Reservations recommended* Phone +212 6 62 57 57 11 or book through coupdefoudre.ma
What to Drink — A Small Primer
Moroccan wine is much better than its international reputation suggests. The Meknes region in particular produces serious reds — Médaillon Rouge, Volubilia, and Domaine de Sahari are all worth ordering. White wines are decent; the reds are the genuine surprise.
Mint tea is, of course, the great drink of the country, and any of these venues will pour you a fresh pot if you'd rather not drink alcohol — it is an entirely respected choice and there is no awkwardness about it. Coup de Foudre's full *Sans Alcool* menu is genuinely creative and worth ordering even if alcohol is on the table. But in Agadir almost everywhere serves delicious fresh juice. Don't hold back!
Casablanca beer is the local lager — light, properly cold, fine with an early dinner.
Timing. Agadir runs later than the UK or US: dinner from eight, peak at nine-thirty, bars opening late afternoon and the proper rooms quietening around midnight or one. Blue Note's music doesn't start until 10pm. Plan accordingly.
Getting there. Taxis are cheap and plentiful. Here's the rules. Red Taxis - or Petit Taxi, no more than 3 riders (Sometimes they will stop and collect additional passengers en route, don't be alarmed). They stay within the city for shorter journeys. Make sure the meter is on - and if it "doesn't work" get out. The Grande Taxi - White and Yellow - up to 7 passengers. These are for airport runs and further afield too. You agree the fixed price before you get in — generally 30 to 60 dirhams for journeys within the city, slightly more after midnight. Most hotels will arrange a taxi for you and confirm the price in advance.
Dress. Smart casual will get you welcomed everywhere. Coup de Foudre rewards a slightly elevated effort. Blue Note appreciates a jacket. La Suite and The View are forgiving of linen and a relaxed shirt. Don't forget we're on the Atlantic coast and the weather often favours something a little warmer in the evening breeze.
Tipping. 10% at the bar is normal; rounding up is fine for individual drinks. For musicians at La Suite or Blue Note, 50–100 dirhams left on the piano or handed to the musician is the right gesture if you've enjoyed the music. They notice. They appreciate it.
During Ramadan. Some hotel bars close during daylight hours and reopen after sunset, and a few independent venues close entirely for the month - and rules on drinking tighten, so expect to produce your passport at the off-license. The cultural rhythm of Ramadan is genuinely beautiful to witness, and the city after iftar (the breaking of the fast dinner) takes on a particular warmth and generosity that I would not miss for anything - do expect staff to stop and eat and have a break in service at this time. Coup de Foudre's evening service typically continues; do confirm in advance.
A note on solo travellers. All of these venues are perfectly comfortable for solo women. The View in particular is a lovely place to watch the sunset alone with a book. The bartenders at La Suite and Coup de Foudre are warm and conversational. Amelia has written more fully on solo travel in Morocco; her guide is the one to read.
Last Word
Agadir, after dark, is a city that rewards people who take their evenings seriously. Slow them down. Choose the right room for the mood you're in. Sit somewhere with a view, listen to someone play something properly, drink something well-made. Take a friend. Stay later than you meant to.
I'll see you at one of these rooms. I'll be the one in the corner who asks the pianist if he takes requests. And if I were to order a Last Word (Gin, Chartreuse, Maraschino, Fresh Lime) - I hope it would be made by Lily! Cheers
— Jonny