Since Mamounia closed ever so many years ago, I have been waiting for another Moroccan restaurant to take its place--not just Moroccan food, but the whole Moroccan restaurant experience. I don't know if all the ritual--the sweet mint tea poured from a great height, the hand washing, the lounging among pillows--is authentic or just put on for tourists, but frankly I don't care. It feels theatrical even if it isn't, and your husband looks kingly, even, sitting there under the tentlike draperies, leaning back on the upholstered pillows with a towel spread over his knees.

The towel, by the way, is a generous napkin--dinner at Marrakesh is five courses ($17.50), and you eat them all with your hands. You get a tomatoey lentil soup (with some sort of citrusy, fragrant undertone); a Moroccan salad (tomatoes and cucumbers chopped into a kind of slurry, with a delicious carrot-and-eggplant purée); a b'stilla royale (puff pastry enclosing shredded chicken and scrambled egg, and topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon); then a main course, then dessert and tea.

The thing I love about Moroccan food is how it can be deeply rich and satisfying and nearly heavy, but still have a kind of light, hovering fragrance about it as well. This is achieved with spices such as cumin and cardamom, and flavors such as orange-flower water; one chicken dish is lightened with preserved lemons and olives, and in the braised hare, cumi and paprika give the heavy stew a smoky lift. Sweet and savory are frequent companions--from couscous with raisins and onions in ginger sauce, to chicken with honey and prunes. When you eat the b'stilla, your palate takes a little round trip, from the chicken and egg to the sugar to the cinnamon and back again, that is a pleasure not unlike French toast and bacon.

On one side of me I watched a skinny blonde girl lick her fingers provocatively, even though she was only dining with her mother. On the other side, a more fastidious couple asked for forks, picked apart their food, and then declared it delicious. A steady stream of customers arrived. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has been waiting, waiting for Marrakesh.