What to eat in Tunis
Harissa on every table, a brik with a runny egg, lablabi in a bowl of torn bread and fish by the kilo on the coast — Tunisian food is spiced, cheap and almost never in the hotel.
- Breakfast
- Lablabi: chickpea soup over torn bread
- Starter
- Brik: fried pastry with egg
- Main
- Couscous with lamb or fish
Tunis is eaten spiced and cheap, and outside the hotel: lablabi for breakfast in a place with one pot, a brik with egg as the starter in every eatery, couscous on Friday when everyone cooks it, and fish by the kilo by the sea. Harissa sits on the table like salt; how much heat you take is up to you.
Breakfast from one pot
A bowl into which yesterday's bread is torn by hand, chickpea soup with cumin over it, then harissa, oil, capers, tuna and an egg — all stirred with a spoon and eaten hot, for a couple of euros (€1.30–1.80). The places that make only lablabi open at six in the morning in the medina and around the Central market, and it is the breakfast not to look for in a hotel. In winter it is an institution; in summer it is still eaten, just earlier.
The starters of every eatery
A brik is thin malsouka pastry folded over an egg, tuna and parsley and fried so the yolk stays runny; eaten by hand, from a corner, and it is the test of every eatery. Mechouia is a salad of peppers and tomatoes grilled on a plate, crushed with oil and tuna, as hot as the peppers want. Bread and harissa come with both, and in Tunisia harissa is not a sauce but an ingredient.
Couscous on Friday, fish by the sea
- Couscous — with lamb, chicken or fish, on Friday in every eatery and every home, €2.60–4.50 a plate. The Tunisian version is cooked with a spoon of harissa in the sauce, red and spicier than the Moroccan.
- Fish by the kilo — in La Goulette, the first port on the TGM line, and in Bizerte: chosen on ice, grilled, paid by weight with salads and bread.
- Ojja — eggs broken into a tomato sauce with merguez sausages, in the pan; a lunch eaten with bread.
- Mloukhia — a dark green thick stew of powdered jute leaf, with beef; cooked for hours for holidays and family gatherings, with a taste that is remembered.
- Fricassé — a fried roll with tuna, egg, potato and harissa, from a stall, €1.30–1.80; a snack that replaces lunch.
Sweet things and coffee
Bambalouni, fried ring-shaped dough dusted with sugar, from a stall in Sidi Bou Said and along the avenue, hot; makroud, a semolina cake with dates, from Kairouan; and mint tea with pine nuts in the cafés, drunk after the meal, not with it. Coffee is an espresso in the French cafés on the avenue, and it is the best coffee in the country.
Where not to
- A restaurant in the hotel 'medina' at Yasmine or Kantaoui. Couscous for tourists, without harissa, at triple the price.
- A menu in five languages with pictures in the medina. The same dishes are two streets away in a place with one pot.
- A brik with a hard yolk. A sign it was fried in advance; a brik is made to order, and if it is not, you do not go back.
Before you go
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
How hot is Tunisian food?
As hot as the harissa you take. Harissa sits on the table and you add it yourself; the dishes themselves are spiced with cumin and coriander, not hot. Mechouia depends on the peppers, and you ask first.
What do you eat in Tunis if you do not eat meat?
Lablabi, brik, mechouia, vegetable couscous and fish on the coast. Most starters are meatless; tinned tuna is in everything, so you ask about that too.
Where do you eat fish near Tunis?
In La Goulette, the first port on the TGM line, where the quay is full of restaurants with fish on ice chosen and paid by the kilo; and in Bizerte, 1 h by train. In the city itself fish is rarer and dearer.
Ready for Tunis?
Where to next
The best time to visit Tunis
→Tunis has no beach as a reason to come, so the date is picked by the temperature you walk the medina in, not…
Sidi Bou Said · 17 km
→A blue-and-white village on a cliff above the bay and, two stops before it, what is left of the city that was bigger than Rome
How well does Tunis suit you?
→Six questions: a score for this place and others like it.
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