Kosybar Marrakech

Kosybar sits on the south side of Place des Ferblantiers in the Mellah, a three-floor townhouse with a ground-floor restaurant, a first-floor lounge and a rooftop that looks straight across at the ramparts of El Badi Palace. The palace's resident stork colony nests in plain view from the parapet — a detail every English-language guide from Time Out Marrakech to the Lonely Planet Marrakech chapter singles out as the venue's selling point. It is one of the very few licensed bars in the Medina, which is the structural reason it draws the crowd it does.

The right visitor wants a sundowner with a postcard view in walking distance of the Bahia Palace and is prepared to pay Gueliz prices for the location. The wrong visitor is hunting a craft cocktail programme — Kosybar's drinks are competent rather than destination, and the bar's strength is the room, the sushi and the timing. For a serious cocktail night, head north to Le Salama or up to Gueliz; for the sunset, stay here.

The ground floor is the indoor restaurant — high ceilings, low light, a long bar. The first floor is a covered lounge with banquettes and the sushi counter (the venue is run with a Japanese chef on the rolls, a holdover from its 2002 opening that long predated the city's wider Japanese-food wave). The rooftop is a tiled terrace with rattan armchairs facing the palace; The Guardian's Marrakech round-up described the view as 'the city's most reliably photogenic sunset seat', and the photo evidence on the venue's Instagram backs the claim.

Order a Kosy Spritz (around 140 MAD) or a glass of Volubilia rosé from the Domaine de la Zouina and time it for the 30 minutes before sunset. The classics list runs the standard mid-range Marrakech roster — mojitos, margaritas, espresso martinis in the 130–160 MAD band — built to spec but not innovating. Travel guides from Condé Nast Traveler to Time Out Marrakech consistently flag the rooftop and the food as the reasons to come, not the bar programme.

The sushi is the surprise. The first-floor counter has been running since the bar opened in 2002 and locals on r/Marrakech recurringly mention it as the most reliable Japanese kitchen in the Medina. Pair a few rolls (95–180 MAD apiece) with a Casablanca beer and the bill stays reasonable; the full sit-down menu in the ground-floor restaurant moves into the 350+ MAD-a-head bracket, at which point Le Salama or the Mandarin Oriental's restaurants are stronger options.

Daytime is heavy tourist — guidebook readers and tour groups ducking off the souks for a beer. The shift happens around 18:00 when a mixed crowd of Marrakech expats, longer-term visitors and a small contingent of dressed-up locals turns up for the sunset hour. By 22:00 the rooftop thins; many tables transfer downstairs for dinner. Lonely Planet's Marrakech chapter notes the venue 'turns over from a tourist café to an early-evening locals' terrace and back again within two hours' — fair description.