10 traditional Tunisian cuisine dishes to eat in Tunis

Shakshuka, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by timolina, from Freepik

Today, shakshuka, also known as chakchouka, is an international hit that continues gaining recognition, driven by its taste and nutritional properties. A combination of poached egg for protein and peppers, garlic, onion, cumin, and paprika for vitamins and minerals, this dish, often served with harissa (see below) and spicy tomato sauce, definitely hails from the healthy food realm.

While there is neither name nor time and place to pin the creation of shakshuka to, this simple yet efficient culinary masterpiece is highly likely an authentic Maghrebi design. Traditional to the cuisines of the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), the dish comes in many variations; to be called Tunisian, chakchouka should have crushed garlic and caraway powder filling supporting roles. A perfect choice for a solid breakfast in Tunis!

Located in the heart of Tunis, Café Mrabet offers all the staples of Tunisian/Maghrebi cuisine. This is the area of the city that is filled with landmarks to the brink: Victory Square, several prominent mosques, monument Place de la Kasbah, all within several minutes on foot from the establishment. If you’re holidaying here, and historical sights are your thing, you can’t miss this eatery. Come in the morning, see the marvelous architecture in bright sunlight, and treat yourself to a shakshouka at Café Mrabet, one of the best of its kind in Tunis overall.

Harissa, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by KamranAydinov, from Freepik

Harissa belongs to Maghrebi cuisine, but its origin can be traced back specifically to Tunisia (Ottoman Tunisia back then). This spicy paste was invented sometime between 1535 and 1574, during the Spanish occupation of the country, when chili peppers, the main ingredient of harissa, were brought here.

The word itself stems from Arabic “harasa,” meaning “to mash, to crush.” The core ingredients of authentic Tunisian harissa are red chilies (dry or roasted), garlic, citrus, olive oil, cumin, coriander, and caraway. Turned into a paste, it is a condiment served alongside most traditional fish and meat dishes, be it a stew, a roast, a soup, or anything else. You can eat harissa in Tunis in pretty much any restaurant deserving your attention.

As mentioned above, harissa is something you are likely to find next to whatever food you order at a Tunisian eatery. It can also be a standalone starter coupled with bread you can spread it over to enjoy a spicy treat. This means that in a next-door Tunis restaurant, you are likely to find your fix of harissa. Examining Bourguiba Clocktower, one of the sights in the center of the city, walk a couple minutes north-west to Chez Slah, a cozy national cuisine diner where you can have a full meal, complete with harissa, of course.

Lablabi, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by freepik, from Freepik

Presumably, every cuisine of the world has a poor man’s dish that climbed up to the top to be labeled a staple. Pizza is a great example of such an ascent; once just flatbread with lard and garlic on top, it is now one of the most popular foods in the world. In Tunisian culinary tradition, this path was walked by lablabi, which appeared around the 16th century.

It would seem that the original recipe of lablabi has not changed much through the centuries: it is still a thick chickpea soup made with garlic and cumin, served over pieces of crusty bread. Nowadays, ordering a bowl thereof in Tunis will likely put on your table a set of complements like poached egg, tuna, capers, pepper, olives, and the ubiquitous harissa. For locals, this is an everyday lunch or dinner comfort food opted for during the colder season; you, being an out-of-towner, can eat lablabi in Tunis any time of the year.

Lablabi is Tunisian street food, and while you can definitely find it on menus of more upscale cafés and restaurants, the true experience lies in buying a bowl from a street stall or in a diner filled with residents of the city. In the touristy part of Tunis, Weld El Commissar fits this bill: made by locals and for locals, it specializes in lablabi, which means this is where you go to for a unique taste of this dish.

Tunisian chorba frik, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by KamranAydinov, from Freepik

This one is an interesting example of a dish that, in the course of several centuries, made it to cuisines of a whole set of nations (from MENA through Southeast Europe to South Asia), with none of them claiming ownership thereof. Rather, each tries to highlight the tweaks made to the original recipe, which make it ciorbă, or çorba, or šurbâ, etc.

The original word for this gem is šōrbā; it comes from Persian and means “salty, brackish” (šōr) “stew, gruel, spoon-meat” (bā). The only common ingredient of non-vegetarian variations of chorba is lamb/chicken, everything else – spices, veggies, noodles, – can differ across the entire culinary spectrum. In Tunisia, shorba frik is a dinner staple, especially during the 30 nights of Ramadan; its highlights are green wheat, celery, cilantro, chickpeas, and dry mint. Regardless of when you come to Tunis, chorba should be your dish of choice for those “I-am-so-hungry” situations.

Fondouk El Attarine is another restaurant located in Tunis’ Medina district, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979 with about 700 various sights and landmarks that were built within the period from the Almohad Caliphate to the Hafsids. Serving all the staples of Maghrebi cuisine, the place occupies an old, picturesque building, which adds to the overall experience of dining there.

Tunisian brik, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by Kritzolina. Licence CCAA4.0. Cropped from original

Pastries stuffed with various ingredients and deep fried to a savory, mouthwatering result, can be found in all cuisines of the MENA region and around the Mediterranean Sea. Greeks have boureki or tiropitakia, Lebanese and Turks – burek, people of the Balkans – boureka. Nations of the Caucasus and South Asia also have a dish of this kind, and in Tunisia, the concept was realized as brik.

The common variation of Tunisian brik is a malsouka dough triangle stuffed with tuna, egg, mashed potatoes, chopped onion, and parsley, plus harissa. Believed to have taken shape during the Ottoman times, currently, this snack is a mainstay street food in Tunis and elsewhere in the country, often sprinkled with lemon juice before consumption.

On Google Maps, the name is El Ali Resto & Café Culturel, which hints on the cultural enlightenment part of a visit thereto. Indeed, given its location in the heart of Medina, among narrow streets and numerous craft shops, you can learn something about the country’s culture. Moreover, the rooftop of the building the place occupies is a floor with tables, too, and it gives magnificent views of the ancient city. Tunisian brik is just one of the dishes you can enjoy here; despite the prime spot in Medina, the establishment does not rip tourists off but offers generous portions of everything, so allocate a bit more time for your visit to El Ali.

Tunisian couscous, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by freepik, from Freepik

Couscous is a gift from the Berbers, a people living throughout the entire Northern Africa. Naturally, this means that every distinct nation there, – Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Libya, etc., – has its own variation of this dish, but all of them revolve around one and the same core ingredient: steamed semolina, i.e., granules of durum wheat.

In Tunisian dialect, the name of this meal is kosksi. The more or less traditional way of cooking it is with meat, vegetables, and chickpeas. What sets Tunisian couscous apart from other variations found throughout the region is that it’s based on tomato sauce, not tumeric, and pretty much never has fruits in it, with a rare exception made for raisins. Of course, this is subject to preferences and opinions of those making the dish, same as the cooking method employed: you can come across Tunisian couscous prepared in a double decker pot, with meat and other ingredients boiled below a layer of semolina that’s steamed in the upper section. This degree of variety suggests that you eat koski in several different restaurants of Tunis.

As you have already gathered, most restaurants in Tunis operate in its Medina quarter, which is actually a whole district. You can call it a tourist trap, since many establishments here consider themselves upscale (unjustified assumption, in some cases), and price their offerings accordingly. There are, however, those that simply do their business with due passion, like the aforementioned Weld El Commissar and Restaurant Dar Slah, which is a good place to eat couscous at. Located several minutes on foot north-east of the Government Square, this diner can pleasantly surprise you with reasonable figures in the menu, tasty food, generous portions, and authentic atmosphere.

Mechouia salad, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by user14908974, from Freepik

Mechouia (mashwiya) salad, with the first word meaning “grilled,” is a popular starter of a major meal in Tunisia. Also called slata mechouia, this dish doesn’t have a written history shedding light on its origins, but many believe that the recipe took its ultimate form in Tunis.

Grilled vegetable salads are not unique to Tunisian cuisine; cookbooks of the Caucasus, for example, suggest something of this kind, but skewered, roasted over fire, and then chopped into a perfect starter mix. The ingredients are quite similar, too: tomatoes, peppers, onions, eggplants (optional in mechouia), and garlic. Tunisian grilled veggies salad, however, contains tuna fish and boiled eggs, which make it a more hearty meal. Despite the cooking method, it can be labeled healthy, given the vitamins and nutrients delivered by its plant components, and it’s always good to have something like that when you’re on a gastronomic tour in an exotic African country.

Dar El Jeld is a restaurant of the namesake hotel, pretty fancy and posh, with everything that entails, higher prices on the negative side and top quality food on the positive. Plus the location, which, if you stay here, lets you walk through all of Tunis on your feet. In case you’re looking for a fine dining experience and ready to pony up accordingly, this restaurant is definitely the place to go. Really like the food at Dar El Jeld? Consider booking a room and get free breakfasts therewith!

Tunisian merguez, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by stu_spivack. Licence CCBY-SA 2.0. Cropped from original

What are the properties of sausages as a concept that made them so popular throughout the world? Portability, longevity, and ease of consumption. You could argue with that and/or add a couple of items to the list, but there’s no denial of the fact that all noteworthy cuisines of the world have a national sausage in the books. Maghrebi culinary traditions, which underpin the majority of authentic Tunisian recipes, are no exception.

The name of the sausage cooked throughout Northern Africa is merguez, and it’s raw lamb and/or beef, heavily spiced with chili peppers, harissa, and cumin, stuffed into intestines. Other common ingredients are sumac, garlic, and pepper; grilled, this sausage is a hearty snack on its own or a source of protein in ojja, a totally non-vegan variation of chakchouka. Don’t miss out on your chance to bite into an authentic merguez in Tunis!

While Medina is arguably the most attractive district of Tunis from a tourist’s perspective, it is certainly not the only one: Carthage is here, too, the ancient settlement eternalized in the “Carthago delenda est” phrase, uttered centuries ago by Cato the Elder, a Roman Republic politician. If you like archaeology, the site delivers by all means: it is open to the public, for the most part, and simply radiates grandeur of the ancients. And, when you feel this exploration taxing your bodily resources, drop into Chez Weld Moufida, a small and nice place just outside Sidi Bou Said park, for a refreshing plate of ojja, shakshouka with merguez.

Makroudh, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by Zeinebtakouti. Licence CCAA4.0. Cropped from original

Makroudh, a semolina cookie, is a popular sweet snack in all Maghrebi cuisines. The recipe, simple as it is, is believed to descend to the times when people finally mastered baking.

Today, makroudh (also spelled makrout) is a blend of semolina and all-purpose flours turned into sturdy dough with water, then wrapped around fillings of dates, figs, or almond paste, and cut into diamond shapes. For heat treatment, the cookies can be kept in an oven or fried in hot oil, both approaches delivering golden crispy delights differing in texture. Afterwards, these marvelous Tunisian pastries are often immersed in a bath of sweet honey or sugar syrup, soaking up the delectable sweetness. Couple your cup of coffee with makroudh in Tunis, but be warned, these diamonds are highly addictive!

Makroudh is an all-time favorite among Tunisians, much like baklava (see below), so you can find it virtually in any worthy restaurant or coffee shop throughout the city. If you happen to enjoy the streets of Cité Mahrajène, cobblestoned and lined with white-and-blue houses, take a minute to find Pâtisserie Decarlo at Avenue Hédi Chaker there. Being a bakery, the shop offers some of the best makroudh cookies in town.

Tunisian baklava, a traditional Tunisian dish. Image by 8photo, from Freepik

You may think that baklava is an original Turkish dish, or Mediterranean, from a higher perspective. In fact, Turks and Greeks did a good job popularizing this outrageously good delight, but the real inventors of the recipe that suggests alternating thin flatbread and crushed nuts are Assyrians, whose empire spanned across what’s known today as Iran, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey.

For Tunisia, baklava is the heritage of the Ottoman Empire. Here, the traditional way of making this sweet pastry prescribes lining layers of filo dough with finely chopped nuts and fragrant spices. The best known variations of Tunisian baklava are triangular samsa bites and cylindrical ballouti pieces. A dish for gatherings and special occasions, it creates a bond between divine taste and Tunis in your mind if you’re lucky enough to enjoy it (in quantities!) there.

As a matter of fact, baklava is a pretty complicated thing from a baker’s perspective. Thin layers of dough, meticulously crushed and mixed filling, all the wrapping, rolling, and cutting involved… Yes, you can find it in many shops and cafés in Tunis, and we do encourage you to take a dozen attempts at this delight if you are looking to get the full picture of what it can be instead of being content with an “extremely sweet” label. Gourmandise Aouina in the northern part of Tunis Governate is a good place to start your exploration of traditional Tunisian baklava.

If you know your jazz, the iPod in your mind starts playing Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia” the moment you hear the name of this country. And while this song has dramatic connotations – written in 1942, it highlighted racial inequalities in the US through the lens of WWII, – it was accepted by the nation as a sort of anthem. Your trip to Tunis will certainly extend the list of associations you have with this land, and many dishes, like couscous and baklava, will become Tunisian in your mind.