We tumble in from the rain to met by Mediterranean flavours that transport us over 1,000 miles away to North Africa.

But order carefully and you can send your tastebuds not only on holiday but back in time some 600 years or more to medieval England.

As author Kate Colquhoun explained when she promoted her new history of British cooking, Taste, over Tudor game casserole at Sheffield's Off The Shelf literary festival last year, the food that Chaucer ate was remarkably similar to that found in North African countries like Morocco today.

Well, that eaten by the nobility and gentry who could afford all the labour intensive cooking and spices - your humble scribe would probably be a serf surviving on pease porrage.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves on a night that was included some good eating and a waiter who tried to blarney us that bread and butter pud was Moroccan.

Marrakech, owned by Hicham Boulguid, from Moroccan, who was once a waiter at the old Carthago North African restaurant on Abbeydale Road, and Iranian Shadi Mazhari, opened just before Christmas after a battle getting a drinks licence.

It had originally been the Utopia coffee bar and Hicham, with another partner, bought it as that but wanted to turn it into a restaurant.

Despite the gossamer drapes at the windows, Moroccan music and large, colourful lights hanging from the sky-high ceiling, the place is a bit lacking in atmosphere.

All that exposed metal ducting is fine for a trendy espresso bar but doesn't make you think souk.

They're on the case. Heavier drapes at the windows, more from the ceiling (so it looks like a Bedouin tent) and a few extra artefacts are promised.

It's very pleasant service. There are ten starters and nine mains and we select harira, a chickpea and lentil soup (£3.50) and Moroccan fishcakes (£4.50) from a list which also includes a vegetable terrine, grilled meat skewers, spicy meatballs and merguez, spicy lamb sausage with a harissa dip.

"Do you want it a little bit spicy or just normal?" asks our waiter of the soup. Harira is Morocco's national soup (and before you write in, very big in next-door Algeria, too) and I have it with the heat turned up.

It's very good, just the sort of stuff for a cold night. The heat comes from cayenne and a slice of lemon squeezed in brings out the rich, gutsy flavours. With its chickpeas and lentils this is a sort of North African mulligatawny.

Across the table the fishcake is, in fact, in the singular, one large one cut in half and set at right angles. The fish is salmon, the potato in tiny chunks but the dish lacks a little bit of flavour.

And now the trip in the gastronomic Tardis. If you're a foodie or in the least way adventurous, choose the B'stila (£13.95).

Put simply it's a chicken pie. But that's not the half of it.
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