Coderak, delicious burgers with traditional Moroccan recipes

Head for Marrakech without even getting on a plane, thanks to Coderak, a charming Moroccan-style burger restaurant packed with good ideas and flavors from elsewhere.

Pack your bags and head for Marrakech, landing at Marrakech-Ménara airport (code: RAK) for lunch or dinner. For that, head for the Coderak restaurant, specializing in Moroccan-style burgers. It's the brainchild of Zoubair Rais, a young restaurateur from Rabat who has been paying homage to his roots in plump golden buns for years.

Coderak's burgers feature traditional family recipes from his childhood, and are a source of national pride for the uninitiated. Inside, beef and chicken, shredded like a tagine and seasoned with a thousand and one Mediterranean preparations, flavors and aromatics: olive tapenade, raisins, onions and garlic, roasted almonds, preserved lemon, harissa.

The result is absolutely delicious burgers: juicy, generous, travelers. Like the Le Gharb burger (€8.90), with tajine-style chicken shred, olive tapenade with preserved lemon, tajine sauce and lamb's lettuce, all wrapped in a soft brioche bun; and the L'Imperial burger (€12.90), with tajine-style beef shred, caramelized prune tapenade and toasted almonds.

The same love of tradition is brought to the side dishes, which are a far cry from the burgers, like this excellent zaalouk (6€), a salad of grilled eggplants, generously seasoned with garlic and parsley (a delight), and these sautéed potatoes (4€) topped with a good dose of shredded beef, garlic and tajine spices.

It's as if we, too, were experiencing flavors straight out of our childhood. To accompany the demonic cheesecake topped with amlou (6€), a kind of praline made with argan oil from the Souss region, there's nothing like homemade mint tea (4€), sweetened to taste and served in a pretty silver service.

The prices are sweet too: €12.90 for lunch with chicken/vegetarian burger, side and cold drink or chicken/vegetarian burger and dessert; €15.90 for lunch with beef burger, side and cold drink or beef burger and dessert.