Moroccan food and lots of mezcal at Kensington’s new Café Fés 

By Scott Lynch

The Moroccan menu at the month-old Café Fés on Church Avenue arrives at your table with strong bona fides. The owner and chef Raduone Eljaouhari, who runs the place with his wife Fatima, was born and raised in that North African nation—and, when he opened his first restaurant here in New York City back in 2003, Zerza in the East Village, he brought over his mother to help him develop the dishes.

So, when it comes to classic Moroccan cooking, the place comes correct. “The food is authentic,” Eljaouhari tells Brooklyn Magazine. “Everything is done the way it was when I was growing up. There’s nothing compromised, nothing rushed.”

So it might surprise you that the mezcal program at Café Fés appears to be one of the deepest in Brooklyn, with a whole agave-based slate of margaritas, specialty drinks, and three-shot flights. It’s a seemingly non-Moroccan passion that Eljaouhari picked up at another of his East Village projects, consulting at Mayamezcal, which he asserts “created the mezcal bar scene in New York.” (Eljaouhari was also involved in a short-lived “freedom-themed” spot called ‘Merica, which, the less said about the better).

But getting back to the food, Café Fés is loaded with expected Mediterranean offerings like couscous dishes and kebabs, tagines and zaaluk, an eggplant and pepper spread that comes as part of the Café Fés Trio, along with hummus and the also-eggplant-based muhammara.

Cafe Fes trio: muhammara, hummus, zaaluk; $15 (Scott Lynch)

The latter is just one of many small plates and starters on the menu—Eljaouhari refers to them as tapas in conversation—including a row of shrimp with chickpeas, some good spinach-stuffed bourekas, a pile of roasted cauliflower with lemon tahini (one of several vegan dishes on the menu), and more out-of-left-field items like queso fondue with tortillas, patatas bravas, and that Provençal anchovy-laden flatbread classic, pissaldière.

Bourekas (Scott Lynch)

Spicy prawns, $12 (Scott Lynch)

Eljaouhari often adds specials to the mix, like the unfussy grilled sardines I had the other evening, charred to a crisp and served simply on pearl couscous.

Grilled sardine special, market price (Scott Lynch)

I would suggest getting anything with merguez, which was the highlight of my lavish “couscous royal” entree, the lamb sausage all snappy and funky. A pair of tagines, one lamb, another chicken, and salmon in a bright green chermoula sauce are among the other half dozen entrees.

Couscous royal, $28 (Scott Lynch)

Eljaouhari wasn’t looking to expand his operation to Kensington, or anywhere else, but a friend talked him into looking at this space on Church—the previous tenant, La Loba Cantina, closed at the end of last summer—and it felt like destiny. “I came in here and the first thing I saw was the Moroccan tiles on the floor,” he said. “And I was like, wow, I don’t have to put in my own Moroccan tiles! It was really just a pleasant surprise. And then I see: oh it’s a mezcal bar! That’s what I do! And I said, ‘Yeah I think I like this place’.”

Mucho mezcal (Scott Lynch)

Café Fés is located at 790 Church Avenue, between East 7th and East 8th Streets, and is currently open on Tuesday through Saturday from 4:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight, and on Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Closed Monday.