Los Angeles knows tacos.
So when Majda Belaroui serves her Moroccan take on them, it’s a gamble in a city proud and deeply knowledgeable about Mexican cuisine. Still, any skepticism softens with the first bite.
“Some of the best in the world, and still little known,” Belaroui says, opening a can of Moroccan sardines.
She fries the little fish in a mélange of ingredients emitting familiar aromas: cumin seeds, harissa aioli, chermoula, and pickled onions. The result is crunchy, spicy, and delicious. A creation that feels unmistakably North African while still speaking clearly to Mexican and Southern Californian sensibilities.
Belaroui was born in her familial village of Rommani and grew up in nearby Rabat. Once one of Morocco’s largest wine-exporting regions, Belaroui proudly highlights Rommani’s legacy in her pop-up, Café Maghreb.
She learned to cook alongside her grandmother, navigating intricate souqs in search of spices, harissa, and even shark meat. Food, for Belaroui, was a form of connection: a way to be close to her grandmother and an avenue for both memory and exploration.
Now living in Los Angeles, Belaroui finds herself navigating a different kind of landscape, one where Moroccan food is often flattened into clichés or misunderstood altogether. Her challenge is not simply just to introduce Moroccan cuisine to L.A., but to do so in a form people recognize, without allowing it to be reduced to novelty or gimmick.
That’s where the taco comes in.
“I want to introduce people to Moroccan food. I do want to be that Moroccan chef,” Belaroui says. “There are only two or three Moroccan restaurants in the SoCal area, and the cuisine doesn’t receive the justice it deserves. There’s so much history and love in the food.”
Inspired by Los Angeles chefs who blur boundaries between modern American and global cuisines, Belaroui works with farmers' market produce and translates it through a Moroccan lens. Her cooking is grounded in North African tradition while remaining deeply shaped by Southern California. It’s a conversation between places, a way of feeding people while telling a story.
It’s impossible to talk about Belaroui's Moroccan taco without addressing its misunderstood cousin: the French taco.
Often ridiculed in Los Angeles, the French taco is neither French nor Mexican in the way people expect. It was created by Moroccan immigrants in Lyon who were chasing nostalgia, attempting to recreate flavors from home while borrowing inspiration from Mexican cuisine. The result was a messy, yet indulgent, hybrid.
In its own way, the taco has always been a traveler. From the shawarma in the Levant that led to al pastor in Mexico, to French tacos in France and the Maghreb, and now, on a more intimate scale, to Belaroui's Moroccan taco in Southern California.
“If we’re going to call it a French taco, that name already carries so much weight,” Belaroui explains. “But North Africa brought so much culture to France. That history matters.”
Her taco reflects that lineage while speaking fluently to L.A.. It has a corn tortilla, deep-fried sardines, harissa-mayo, red onion, and preserved lemon. Crunch gives way to heat, then citrus. It’s both familiar and unexpected, a nod to Southern California’s fish taco culture and to Morocco’s coastal kitchens.
Belaroui isn’t afraid of culinary risk. She mixes flavors freely, sometimes to the horror of tradition. Would her grandmother approve?
She laughs.
Some of her dishes, like carrots roasted in ras el hanout and served on yogurt, would certainly raise eyebrows back home. But for Belaroui, that tension is productive. Moroccan food doesn’t have to be heavy, she insists. Fresh produce deserves to shine. Vegetables deserve reverence.
Café Maghreb’s menu is intentionally fluid, guided by season, market availability, and tradition. Some mornings, brunch is baghrir (a spongy, porous sort of pancake), served warm with honey and butter, or Persian-influenced shakshouka.
On other days, the table fills with small salads built around Moroccan classics such as taktouka, made from smoked bell peppers and tomatoes, and zaalouk, a cumin-forward smoked eggplant dip. These are joined by preserved lemon, pickles, and bright, punchy flavors meant for sharing.
Staples like zaalouk and taktouka ground the menu in Moroccan tradition, while an abundance of vegetables and seafood keeps it light and coastal, from grilled chermoula branzino to fried sardines. When the moment calls for something heartier, especially at supper club events, dishes like chicken tagine scented with saffron, ginger, and preserved lemon take center stage.
Belaroui isn’t rigid about borders. A tomato and goat cheese galette or a souk salad of seasonal vegetables and Essaouira sardines, perfect for a “girl dinner” on a hot day, can sit comfortably beside North African classics, borrowing freely from the world around her while remaining unmistakably Maghrebi at its core.
Her pop-up, Café Maghreb, unfolds inside the French-Moroccan restaurant Zizou in Lincoln Heights, an almost too-perfect setting. Moroccan tiles, an outdoor fountain, lush greenery, and walls adorned with Zinedine Zidane posters and North African and Levantine musical references create a space that feels suspended between continents.
At Zizou, Belaroui's pop-ups feel relaxed and communal. People linger, pass plates, and talk across tables, the space itself doing half the work. It’s the kind of afternoon that stretches longer than planned.
Even the décor echoes the long, layered relationship between Mexican and Moroccan aesthetics. Alongside her tacos, Belaroui serves imported sardines and wines from her hometown, small acts of preservation and pride.
For Belaroui, the taco is about recognition, not reinvention.
“I just want people to be more curious,” she says. “There’s already so much here that contributes to culture. Go out. Support more businesses. Eat more dishes. Try things. Be curious.”
In a city that thinks it already knows tacos, Belaroui's offers something quieter; not a challenge, but an invitation.
Maghreb Café’s next brunch pop-up at Zizou is scheduled for March 21, with an additional Flavors From Afar Sunday Brunch Club planned for March 31.
2425 Daly St. Los Angeles, CA 90031
