Every visitor to Casablanca eventually asks the same question. Where do I buy babouches? Where can I find a real djellaba, good leather, Moroccan pastries to take home? The answer is one neighbourhood: the Habous, in the centre of Casablanca. Everything is there within a few streets, it is easy to find, and it is one of the cleanest and most beautiful corners of the city.
But the Habous is not what it looks like. And the best part of a visit is not the shopping.
What the Habous Actually Is
Walk under its arches and you would swear the Habous is centuries old. Horseshoe arches, whitewashed walls, carved wooden doors, a minaret rising above the rooftops. In fact, it is about a hundred years old.
In the early twentieth century, Casablanca was growing faster than its old medina could hold. Families were arriving from every corner of Morocco and needed somewhere to live. French architects working under the Protectorate, among them Albert Laprade, Auguste Cadet and Edmond Brion, were asked to design a new medina from scratch. Construction began in 1917, in the traditional style but to modern standards.
The land came from an unexpected place. A Jewish merchant from Casablanca, Haïm Bendahan, gave it to the administration of the habous, the religious endowments that in Morocco fund mosques, schools and public works. The neighbourhood took their name. Habous means an endowment: property given away permanently for the common good.
The first building to rise in the quarter was not a house or a souk. It was the Royal Palace.
This is why the Habous feels different from the old medinas of Fes or Marrakech. The streets are wider and laid out with intent. It is clean, ordered and calm. It is a medina as someone imagined a medina should be.
The Neighbourhood Around It
The Habous is an orderly island, but the island has neighbours. Just beyond its edges begins Derb Sultan, literally "the sultan's quarter", one of the busiest and most crowded districts of Casablanca.
I would not send a visitor there, and not for safety reasons. Derb Sultan is where ordinary Casablancans buy their everyday needs: narrow lanes, shops on every inch of pavement, noise, crowds, streets that are not always clean. It is real Casablanca, but it is not a place most travellers enjoy. It does hold one surprise, the Hafari, the biggest gold market in the city.
Know that it is there. Then stay inside the Habous.
Where to Shop in the Habous, and How to Negotiate
The souk streets of the Habous cover almost everything a visitor wants to bring home:
Babouches: the soft leather slippers, in every colour.
Djellabas: the long hooded robe Moroccans still wear every day.
Gandouras: the lighter robe, made for warm weather.
Leather goods: bags, poufs, belts, wallets.
Ceramics and spices: plus the olive market, where you can taste before you choose.
One rule applies here as in any Moroccan shop: the first price is an opening offer, not a price. Negotiate, calmly and with a smile. A common approach is to open at around half of what you are asked and meet somewhere in the middle. Most shops in the Habous prefer cash, so bring dirhams.
The Habous Ritual: Bennis, Then Café Impérial
This is the part most visitors miss, and it is a sequence.
First, Pâtisserie Bennis. This small, tiled shop has been run by the same family, originally from Fes, since the 1930s, and it is four generations old today. There is usually a queue, and it is worth it. You can taste the pastries before you buy, so take your time: cornes de gazelle, almond briouats, honeyed sweets. Fill a box. Bennis takes credit cards. You can see the full range on their Instagram.
Then walk to Café Impérial, whose terrace looks directly onto the great square of the Habous. Sit outside, open your box of pastries, and order a thé chamali.
Chamali means "from the north". In most of Morocco, tea arrives in a teapot and you pour it yourself, glass after glass. In the north, in Tangier and Tetouan, it is served directly in the cup, with fresh mint leaves inside. Café Impérial serves it the northern way, in a large cup, and visitors love it. If you want to understand the other way, the pot, the high pour and the foam, here is what the berrad actually means.
Pastries from Bennis, tea from the north, the square in front of you. That is the Habous.
Around the Square: The Mosque and the Palace
Above the square rises the minaret of the Mohammadi Mosque. Designed by Auguste Cadet and inaugurated in June 1936 by Sultan Mohammed V, whose name it carries, it drew on three masterpieces: the Koutoubia in Marrakech, the Qarawiyyin in Fes and the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra. It holds more than 6,000 worshippers. As with most mosques in Morocco, non-Muslim visitors admire it from outside.
Next to the quarter stands the Royal Palace of Casablanca, built in the 1920s. It cannot be visited, but its monumental gates are worth the short walk. Nearby, the Mahkama du Pacha, a former courthouse completed in 1952, is one of the most ornate buildings in the city.
End the Day at maQam
When the light starts to fade, go to maQam, a riad in the Habous where you can come for a drink, hot or cold, or for a full meal. Its terrace is one of the best places in the neighbourhood to watch the sunset.
It is not expensive. At the time of writing, a bowl of harira costs around €4.50, a tagine between €14 and €16, and a tea about €2. The full menu is on maQam's Instagram, and you can find it on Google Maps. Cards are accepted.
Before You Go
Where: central Casablanca, next to the Royal Palace. Every taxi driver knows "Habous".
When: mid-afternoon, so you finish at sunset.
Bring: cash for the shops. Cards work at Bennis and maQam.
The order: shop, taste at Bennis, tea at Café Impérial, the mosque and the palace, sunset at maQam.
The Habous was built to look old. What happens there every afternoon, the bargaining, the pastries, the tea, is as old as Morocco itself.
Photos: Thales Botelho de Sousa on Unsplash (souk square and arcades); Pâtisserie Bennis; maQam Casablanca; Wikimedia Commons (Mohammadi Mosque).
