Fez After the Heat: Lantern Makers and Pigeon Feasts in the Rcif Quarter

The medina of Fez doesn't cool down so much as it exhales. Around five in the afternoon, when the sun drops behind the rooftops of Rcif and the temperature slides from punishing to merely warm, the quarter stirs into a different kind of life. Lantern workshops that were shuttered at noon crack open their doors. Smoke lifts from the pigeon grills near the square. The call to Maghrib prayer bounces off facades that have been standing, in some form, since the Marinid dynasty used this district as its commercial corridor in the thirteenth century.

I first came to Rcif on bad advice — someone told me to walk through it quickly on my way to the tanneries. That was wrong. Rcif is the reason to be in this part of the medina, not a corridor you pass through.

1. The lantern makers of Derb Sidi Bouafia

Most of the brass lantern workshops in Rcif sit along or just off Derb Sidi Bouafia, a lane narrow enough that two people with shopping bags can't pass each other without negotiating. The craftsmen here — almost all men, almost all from families who've been doing this for three or four generations — work in copper and brass, punching geometric patterns into sheet metal with hand tools that look medieval because they basically are.

You'll hear the tapping before you see them. The workshops are small, maybe three meters wide, and the finished lanterns hang from every surface. Prices range from around 150 MAD for a small table lantern to upward of 3,000 MAD for a large ceiling fixture, though bargaining is expected and a starting price means almost nothing. Don't ask for a "best price" — ask about the metalwork instead. The artisans who take time to explain the difference between hand-punched and machine-stamped patterns tend to offer fairer numbers anyway.

Skip the lantern shops clustered right at the entrance to the Rcif square. Mass-produced imports from Casablanca at medina-tourist markup. Walk five minutes deeper in.

2. Pigeon pastilla at Rcif, and why the expensive version isn't better

Pastilla — the layered pie of shredded pigeon, almonds, egg, and warqa pastry dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar — is one of those dishes that sounds wrong on paper and works completely on the plate. The sweet-savory combination is Andalusian in origin, brought to Fez by families expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century and refined here over hundreds of years into something the city now claims as its own.

Here's my contrarian position: the elaborate restaurant versions of pastilla, the ones served at riads for 180-250 MAD a plate, are often worse than what you'll eat at the cheap stalls near Place Rcif. The riad versions tend to overdo the sugar, use chicken instead of pigeon, and wrap the whole thing in pastry so thick it loses the delicate crackle. At the stalls near the square — I've eaten at the one directly across from the spice souk entrance multiple times — you get a single-serving pigeon pastilla for around 25-35 MAD. The pastry shatters. The pigeon is dark and actual pigeon.

Order it with a glass of mint tea and eat standing up.

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3. What Rcif sounds like after dark

By eight in the evening, the commercial energy of the quarter contracts to a few streets. The spice sellers close. The vegetable carts disappear. What remains is residential — families on rooftops, televisions through open windows, the occasional motorcycle threading through a passageway with its headlight catching the brass studs on old doors.

The Marinid-era foundouks — old merchant inns built around courtyards — are easier to spot at night because the daytime clutter of commerce is gone and you can see the carved plaster arches without a stack of shoe boxes in the way. Several along the main Rcif axis are in various states of restoration by the Millennium Challenge Corporation and Moroccan heritage authorities, though "restoration" in Fez can mean anything from meticulous conservation to a coat of cement.

Last February I walked through at nine on a Tuesday and had entire stretches to myself. Not eerie — just quiet in a way the medina never manages during the day.

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4. Getting in, getting out, and what not to bother with

The simplest approach to Rcif is through Bab Rcif, the gate on the eastern edge of the medina. Petits taxis from the Ville Nouvelle charge around 15-20 MAD to the gate — insist on the meter or agree on the price before getting in.

From Bab Rcif, Place Rcif is a two-minute walk downhill. The square itself is being renovated on and off, so expect construction barriers depending on when you visit. Don't bother hiring a guide specifically for Rcif — the quarter is compact and the main artery is hard to lose. If you do get disoriented, ask for "Place Rcif" or "Foundouk Rcif" and someone will point you back.

The carpet shops on the north side of the square: skip them entirely. Same inventory, same sales tactics, higher prices than you'll find near Bab Boujloud or in the Seffarine area. They survive on catching people as they enter the medina before they've calibrated their sense of what things cost.