16 minute read
the Pro-Files: Sebastian de Gzell
Restaurateur Sebastian de Gzell
NOMAD Restaurant, Marrakech, Morocco
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Food Fair’s editor Chris Gudenzi sits down with Sebastian de Gzell, one of the founders of Nomad Restaurant located deep in a souk in the heart of Marrakech. Sebastian and his team build out an old carpet sellers building in the Medina, developed a menu which collides the old world with the new and voila! That was 4 years ago. Today, NOMAD is firmly established as one of the go-to eateries in the Medina of Marrakech.
Chris Gudenzi: Sebastian welcome and thanks for taking the time so sit down with me today.
Sebastian de Gzell: Hi, my pleasure.
Chris: Sebastian tell us a little about the restaurant.
Sebastian: We opened just about four years ago. This used to be an old carpet stall and it’s actually five buildings we’ve put together and built out. So everything is fairly new. Took us all of four months to design and build, which is really kind of quite astonishing!
Chris: Yeah really quite fast!
Sebastian: Yeah! FF: I mean we’re in the heart of the Medina here. Sebastian: Yeah.
Chris: And this, there are souks everywhere. We are in the alleys and the only way to get here is on foot, it’s just ancient buildings all around us. And then we step into here.
Sebastian: Yeah.
Chris: And it’s this very aroma filled kind of modern restaurant. Speak about the concept a bit.
Sebastian: Well I mean the concept was very much like late 50s early 60s and that’s the inspiration for it. It was a kind of a thing of, you know like south - south of France meets Marrakech in that period. That’s very much the concept behind the design at the time and so.
from a background all over Europe. A mut as you say and you bring a lot of that to the table here in this restaurant and operation. What gets you started in the restaurant operations?
Sebastian: My family was in the hotel business growing up, so I grew up a little bit inside that.
Chris: Right.
Sebastian: And then, the hospitality side. Then when I was in New York I was basically very much on construction and then ended up going into restaurant construction. Building restaurants for other people, which was a great experience. It was really from concept through to opening a number of places, but it was too stressful a job to work with and no vested interest. So I was finally looking to do my own place. I came back here just to sort something out because I’ve had a house here for nearly twenty years and I ran into my old friend who’s asked me to look at a few places with him and then asked me if I’d be interested in joining him in a venture. So I felt why not, and here I am four years later.
Grilled Lamb Chops
Credit Food Fair
Vegetarian Pastilla
Credit: Food Fair
FF: Here you are indeed! Is your partner a chef?
Sebastian: No neither of us are chefs, or architects, or designers, or anything else, but we just, you know, have a bit of a background and everything and applied it all here.
Chris: Okay, and who came up with the idea of the menu and the concept?
Sebastian: It was a collaboration. Me, you know it was sort of largely myself. It’s not a new concept. It is very much based on my experiences with restaurants in San Francisco, or then in L.A. You know, just giving a new fresher take on my local produce and therefore applying it very much to Moroccan cuisine. So we take the traditional Moroccan dishes to get a much fresher take on it, and then we take a lot of international dishes and give them a “Morocaanisation” and have a lot of just like fresh produce and salads, which basically was sorely missed here, so in essence we fill the void. because it’s got two coasts that are in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean surrounding Morocco. So you have seafood all over the place pretty much, but it is a heavily spice driven cuisine. And you’re saying that you brought together, you’re bringing a fresh element to it, a fresh market element to it as well. I mean you’re right, the Moroccan cuisine which isn’t that well known to that many people really doesn’t have the grand exposure as of yet. But it’s an amalgamation; it has Arabic, Andalusian, Berber and Mediterranean. With hints of European and sub-Saharan influence, well there are a many elements here. And then you’re adding to or broadening this even further. Sebastian: I mean it’s not so much broadening as you say. It’s a melting pot of many cultures and you know Marrakech was fundamental in the spice route which was from across the whole Muslim world. From as far as India and then down into Africa. North Africa has been a fundamental part of your Mediterranean culture and so there is definitely a very evolved cuisine here. The problem though is that most tourists will not experience it because restaurants are a relatively new concept in the country, so unless you’re lucky enough to be invited to somebody’s house you might be a little disappointed, just visiting as a tourist if you get here. If you’re fortunate enough then you get to eat a real Tagine and a real Tagine would have normally cooked over coals for at least four hours.
Chris: Interesting.
Sebastian: Caramelized slowly gets the whole infusion of tastes. Most of like the mothers and the grandmothers and aunts who know how to cook well, have a secret recipe, a secret spice blend etc; and this will change very much from house to house.
Chris: It does change?
Sebastian: Yeah, but in a restaurant on the other hand it’s for lack of a better description, it’s a little dumbed-down.
Chris: Okay.
Sebastian: It’s hard to find a good Tagine in a restaurant and basically when we came in, in this very high and very low end restaurant environment, especially in the Medina. The low end justified the street snacks, some of which are great.
Vegetarian Pastilla over Roasted Spiced Fennel
Credit: Food Fair
And you know but most Moroccans will go home to eat. And then on the high end, behind the high investments they are really catering to tourists and this takes us to an elaborate ten course meal. Which is a great experience but you can’t do like that every day. So there’s nothing really filling that middle ground.
Chris: A friend of mine was just in Sri Lanka. He said there was virtually no street food at all. There were higher end restaurants but not much in the middle. He ate out of the supermarket often. And I am finding a little bit of that here. There’s not the street food action that you get in Latin America or Southeast Asia. There is for tourists but mostly in Jemaa el-Fnaa square it seems.
Sebastian: Probably not to the extent but I mean little areas I can show you where basically all the workmen eat. And that’s very much street food there.
Chris: Ok…
Sebastian: And you know you kind of need to know where they go to eat, to define it all. Staples like beans the Lubia, the Lentils, the Harira (this is the local soup lamb, turmeric, black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cayenne, butter, celery, onion, and cilantro into a large soup pot over a low heat. ...), Bissara (which is the breakfast soup), the little brochette etc, etc.
Chris: Moroccan staples…
Sebastian: And they make little Tagines that are just very rudimentary. It’s actually easier to eat better Tagines on the road between the cities. Because what happens is you get the old Berbers coming out in the morning and in the lineup you know ten, twenty. Tagines and all those really will sit over coals and cook. Cook like you know, three, four, five, six hours and when their gone, their gone and then they pack up and do it again the next day. And there you actually have the scent of a caramelized Tagine.
Chris: I’d love to try that some place.
Sebastian: Look where the truck stops are. But no, for the more elaborate Tagines it is definitely in the homes.
Chris: What about your diet?
Sebastian: I’m primarily vegetarian but a little bit, occasionally, I’m a carnivore. I mean I have to be a cop to keep tasting stuff here. Now I will avoid eating red meat until I realize okay I haven’t tasted the chops in a while, I haven’t tasted the burger in a while but even then I’ll share it with somebody. FF: And the lamb here is different than in the west. It’s much leaner, leaner. Sebastian: We are actually very wellknown for our burger here which I have
Rooftop dining with, on a clear day, full views of the Atlas Mountains.
Credit: NOMAD
to say I’m happy with my partner for. It was kind of ideal, citing that the food was my side of it. And then he came forth for burger to be put on the menu and I was like burger? We are Moroccan! And then I did finally relent because I say I feel like I can’t control everything, I have to give him some things. Then we made a Moroccanised burger so we use lamb and beef mixed with caramelized onion, eggplant and harissa mayonnaise. And in the meat itself we have cumin and coriander.
Chris:That sounds great, so this will be the twist on traditional Moroccan cuisine
Sebastian: …and conversely it is the Moroccan twist on western cuisine.
Chris: Roz al Hamood… twenty seven spices.
Sebastian: Not necessarily. People tell you anything they like. Rozin can change radically depending on who is preparing them.
Chris:Radically?
Sebastian: Quite radically, and the cheaper one’s done for tourists here but maybe all of five spices, yeah some people go crazy like 40 something spices.
Chris: Do you have that many available?
Sebastian: Yeah I mean there actually are. But most, I mean most good ones will probably be around anywhere from 12 to 20 spices. Now I think over 20 units becomes pointless.
Chris: And so other restaurants are differentiating themselves with these different compositions?
Sebastian: Unfortunately no! I’ve drilled it into the kitchen here and if I ever catch them using day old spice. I will fire somebody.
Chris: Day old spice?
Sebastian: Yeah, I will never buy the spice in the markets just as I want the actual ingredient. The difference between ground cumin and getting your own cumin seeds, toasting them… it’s just like night and day. One is super fragrant, it’s fresh etc. The other is, well a day is a bit of an exaggeration but after three days it is stale so anyone telling you it’s the same are misleading…. Yeah I mean its good spices, its good cumin etc. but it’s not going to have that same punch and kick to it.
Chris: And that’s going on here at Nomad with all the spices?
Sebastian: Yeah, you get the wrong spices and therein lies the difference. I keep telling my kitchen it’s all about simplicity. You say it, reduce everything to something simpler should be easy on the eye but a little more complex behind but even the complexity can be something as simple as just making your spice fresh and therefore the taste that will come through is one that no one else is going to have. It’s just really simple things like that.
Great spaces like this are throughout the restaurant.
“If you go to a country with a very traditional cuisine and this is what they do and you come in say the same ingredients but let’s do this. They’re like no, we do this and I’m like I know you do that but let’s humor me. Can you do that? No! Well sh*t, so we literally fired three chefs in the first four months of opening.”
Chris: (We are enjoying appetizers near the lobby, it’s mid-afternoon) I see you’re busy here all the time.
Sebastian: We’re on, we’ve been remarkably successful. You know, even when I get the business plan which has the worst case, middle and best case scenario…
FF: …you are on the best case?
Sebastian: It is beyond in the best case scenario but like ridiculously beyond that. And we did no advertising either. I mean no advertising! All word of mouth especially in the beginning because it took a little while to get going. I didn’t want that many people coming through the door at the beginning just because it’s like I can’t say this aloud but think of it visually. If you go to a country with a very traditional cuisine and this is what they do and you come in say the same ingredients but let’s do this. They’re like no, we do this and I’m like I know you do that but let’s humor me. Let’s do this and I say can you do that and everyone always says yes. Caesar can you do that? No! Well shit, so we literally fired three chefs in the first four months of opening.
Chris: You did?
Sebastian: Yeah because they just couldn’t wrap their head around what we’re trying to do differently. They just kept on trying to take it back to the traditional, so I finally ended up getting a French chef who was the only Non-Moroccan working in the place with the exception of a few Senegalese. And he did a very good job like what he ordered the cuisine etc. But he left a few months ago we gave the sous chef a chance to take over but finally saw that he wasn’t, we we’re asking too much of him. And two weeks ago I got a new chef who is also fresh and of Algerian origin. So culturally he gets better the idea of the spices etc. speaks the language so nobody can fool around with him.
Chris: That’s perfect.
Sebastian: And he’s very talented,
NOMAD Couscous
Credit: Food Fair
Credit: Food Fair
so I’ve been very happy for the last few weeks as we go over various dishes and bring them back up to where they should be.
Chris: Excellent.
Sebastian: And add a couple of more, like today we just added a couple more things to the menu. I mean we slowly continue evolve which is also nice. We would keep some basic stuff in. We know what people love, and then with certain dishes we just change out every now and again and the idea is to get more, towards every season.
Chris: To what extent are the diners local and tourists.
Sebastian: Whether I like it or not I’d have to say that 85 to 90 percent are tourists for the simple reason that we’re in the Medina and the Medina is traditional and to the more affluent middle classes of the Moroccan society will not generally speaking eat in the Medina. They don’t live in the Medina and they wouldn’t even come into the Medina. I mean to them it’s like they don’t, to them the Medina is of the hood. So that’s where their housekeeper lives. So yeah I mean to them it’s like the Medina is the Favela quite literally. They don’t understand why the tourists go to the Medina. That’s not to say that everyone in the Medina are impoverished.
The older families in the Medina are very traditional so they go home to eat. It wouldn’t occur for them to eat in a restaurant. Especially when their grandmothers and wives, etc are such good cooks. And if it’s a special occasion then they would go out and leave the Medina to celebrate. We do get, especially on the weekends, interior tourism. Crowds from Casablanca and Rabat. It’s become a weekend retreat. They will come more to the Medina.
Chris: So for the 85 percent or so that are visitors is that about social media?
Sebastian: That’s right basically it’s really I think Instagram …is huge. It’s becoming it’s becoming obviously more and more important. I mean Facebook not that relevant, not any more. It’s really Instagram that drives it and word of mouth. And then also you know we’re in a city that’s because it’ such an international destination.
There are constantly journalists in the city looking for something to write about. And many times you know because we’re relatively new. We always get written about and so what we’re doing is a completely new concept for the city, we definitely get written about. Like me to go online maybe even like somebody to know about it because as matter of fact just doesn’t
Casual elegance marks th
Credit: Food Fair
Vegetarian Briuate
Credit: Food Fair
even contact us. So we just happened to by coincidence catch it on some client sitting there with a magazine. I’m like oh, what’s that? You know excuse me, what are you reading?
Chris: Is a great thing.
Sebastian: I weirdly found it, I think it’s in the very headlines. So I picked up the in-flight magazine. They have a little thing on Marrakech and one of the first places to go eat was Nomad. I thought well thank you very much I guess.
Chris: Absolutely.
Sebastian: So yeah I mean it’s very easy to become known as a result here without actually having to have a whole marketing department.
Chris: It's the quality first, the food first, the basics that drive everything you do, not so much the need. I mean you are not competing apples to apples, it's the fundamentals that drive the story.
Sebastian: You know one of the huge things that actually just came about by chance. Honestly I just put things that I like to eat you know on the starter menu especially if you look at it. Somebody pointed out to me the other day that the starter menu has as many as 12 items which only 2 have meat. Actually one is meat, one is fish the rest are vegetarian. We have a lot even on the mains we have a lot of vegetarian options and I think after you’ve been here and eaten Tagine and couscous for a week you come across us and you’re just so relieved to find the fresh salad and even a burger, that’s a huge seller.
Chris: Sebastian this was fascinating. A pleasure it is to meet you, thanks, the food was fantastic! And again with a uniquely positioned menu, in a unique city with an ancient Medina, it all comes together as a great success story.
Sebastian: So I don’t know if you had a chance to see the rooftop terrace at all?
Chris: No, not yet. Views of the Atlas Mountains?
Sebastian: Yeah the fantastic 360 degree views!
Chris: Nothing like the snow capped Atlas Mountains. I'll head up now to take it in. Sebastian, many thanks!
Sebastian: thanks so much Chris!
