The Heart of Marrakech: A conversation with Hotel Owner & Restaurateur James Wix, Le Trou au Mur
- James Massoud
- Nov 11
- 5 min read
In a city where tagines gleam beneath rooftop sunsets and every riad claims a "true taste of Morocco," Le Trou au Mur dares to go deeper. Tucked beside boutique hotel Le Farnatchi, this intimate restaurant from long-time Marrakech resident James Wix is redefining Moroccan dining – not through reinvention, but restoration. When he asked every member of his team to bring in one family recipe they believed visitors should try, the result was extraordinary: a menu alive with heritage dishes rarely seen outside the home, from camel tangia and stuffed spleen to saffron-scented Tride. Now, with a stunning new rooftop and bar, Le Trou au Mur invites guests to taste the soul of Marrakech – one family story at a time.
Your menu was born from your team’s family kitchens. What surprised you most when those recipes started coming in?
The complexity of some of the dishes. Often Moroccan cuisine is billed as couscous and tagine, and whilst neither should be underestimated, the time and skill that goes into preparing some of the lesser known dishes is impressive.
You’ve lived in the Marrakech medina for more than 15 years. How has that immersion shaped your understanding of Moroccan food culture, and what do outsiders often get wrong about it?
Spicing is complex in many different cuisines, but it is something that is often misunderstood when it comes to traditional Moroccan cooking. The spicing of Moroccan dishes is subtle, not overpowering, and often a mix between sweet and savoury. Modern recipes found in European cookbooks are inevitably tailored to availability and the tastes of their respective markets. For example, the quality and variety of, say, saffron that is readily available here (when you know where to go) can differ fundamentally to that which is readily available in the average European shop.
How did you go about uncovering the lesser-known dishes, like camel tangia or stuffed spleen, and ensuring they stayed true to their origins?
Before we opened Le Trou au Mur I asked all of our staff at Le Farnatchi to ask their mothers, grandmothers and family members about their favourite dishes that they rarely see outside of family homes and we embarked on trying them. The best made it onto the menu and with the help of our skilled head chef we made sure that we kept them real. Inevitably, the odd thing needed to be changed to meet the demands of either modern tastes or presentation but those changes were subtle and didn’t affect the fundamental integrity of the dish.
Asking your team to speak to their family for inspiration feels like an act of cultural preservation as much as menu development. Was that your intention from the start, or something that revealed itself along the way?
An act of cultural preservation sounds a little virtuous, but I suppose that by happenstance, it may have been! Morocco has such a rich cultural history and food is very much a part of it. Being a restaurant in the medina (the old city) of Marrakech we wanted to be able show some of that in our cooking. It was our intention from the start to show our guests that there is so much more to Moroccan cuisine than couscous and tagine.
Every dish on the menu tells a story. Which family recipe moved you the most, and why?
One of our longest serving staff in the laundry said that her grandmother had made a dish that took her all day and although all of her children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren absolutely adored it, none of them could ever spare the time to make it and she now didn’t even know how to. After spending several sessions with our sous chef who loves experimenting, they developed something that she announced with tears in her eyes was the essence of her childhood memories. Unfortunately, it had to be served as it came out of the oven and there was no way of either speeding up the process or preparing it in advance, so it never made it on to the menu.
Balancing heritage with hospitality is tricky. How do you make these deeply traditional dishes approachable for international guests without diluting their authenticity?
This question has really made me smile as hospitality is so deeply rooted in Moroccan heritage. I think by choosing some of the more approachable dishes – yes that includes the stuffed spleen – we have managed to create a menu that is both true to its origins and popular with our international clientele. It is also worth remembering that we have an international menu with some more familiar dishes, for those who would rather have something a little less adventurous.
Le Trou au Mur has been described as "Morocco, served with heart." What does that phrase mean to you personally?
This makes me very happy. We have a very dedicated team who genuinely care about the food we serve and the way we look after our guests, whilst being wonderfully proud of their heritage. I hope that this will always be apparent to our guests. If the guests are having a good time, the staff are definitely at their happiest. I’m sure that the same is true all over the world but nowhere more so than here.
You’ve rebuilt Le Trou au Mur with a new rooftop and bar. How does that physical space complement the soul of the restaurant and the stories behind the food?
We have always had a blend of modern design and traditional Moroccan craftsmanship and that is what our new terrace and bar is all about. With hand-cut Moroccan zelige on the bar, locally hand-crafted asymmetric tiles on the floor, and basket lanterns hanging high above the tables, we have continued that ethos.
Heritage cooking often relies on instinct rather than measurement. How did you translate those intuitive, home-style recipes into a consistent fine dining experience?
We have always shied away from being labelled as a fine dining restaurant largely because it doesn’t really suit our relaxed atmosphere or home-style cooking. We have a very skilled team in the kitchen that spice dishes as their grandmothers did, not using overly restrictive recipes. It goes against everything I was trained to do but we place a high degree of trust in their skill and dedication to get it right, rather than put them in straight jackets. I honestly think that you can taste the sincerity of their dedication.
The menu sits beautifully between comfort and curiosity: truffle mac and cheese beside camel tangia. How intentional was that duality, and what does it say about today’s diners in Marrakech?
Our Moroccan dishes outsell our international by two to one. However, we recognise that people on a longer stay in Morocco can tire of all the spices and just prefer to have something more familiar.
You’re both hotelier and restaurateur. How do you see the relationship between Le Farnatchi and Le Trou au Mur; are they two sides of the same story?
Essentially yes. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of our clients seem to have an innate distrust of hotel restaurants, which is why from the outset we wanted Le Trou au Mur to have its own identity. Whilst there is a "behind the scenes" coordination between the two, maintaining the same ethos of great service coupled with a comfortable authenticity, we felt that it was important to keep them physically separate.
Finally, after Le Farnatchi’s two decades in the medina, what continues to inspire you most about Marrakech?
Its energy and traditions. There is a constantly evolving visual scene, although some things never change. The medina in Marrakech has an incredible energy that is infectious and tradition is everywhere, from the mint tea being sipped by the shopkeepers and their guests, to the crafts on almost every corner – and, of course, the food!
