From busy boulevards to traditional haunts, Morocco’s modern city is more than just Humphrey Bogart
Nick Redman - 19 August 2025
It was with mild disappointment that I first discovered Casablanca on a June holiday in 1990 - a 20-something backpacker not long returned from travels in India, with a heart full of hippie-ethnic love: for chiselled pink Jaipur palaces, camel treks over the Thar desert and Rajasthani people in their rainbow attire.
While there was nothing intrinsically wrong with Morocco’s Atlantic white city, I’d naively anticipated the exotic incarnation seen on the silver screen - lazy cafes swish-cooled by ceiling fans; souks to vanish into, Harrison-Ford-style. Instead, I found flatpack high-rises and Renault hatchbacks burping fumes at every junction.
Since then, I’ve travelled in Morocco a few times – taking in the Mediterranean-blue-and-white alleys of Tangier, via medieval Fez to Marrakech with its funky-cool medina, and the remote former Spanish beach town of Sidi Ifni, a clutter of pastel Art Deco down south towards the Western Sahara.
Somehow each trip through historic Morocco has made me more appreciative of busy modern Casablanca so young and urban, self-assured and not put on for tourists – , even if I’ll always adore its classic Bergman-and-Bogart-informed alter ego. It’s that version, laced with intrigue and espionage, which is revisited in Sky Original’s new nail-biter Atomic, parts of which were filmed in the city.
The five-episode thriller promises ’an adrenaline-charged odyssey through the labyrinthine medinas and bustling metropolises of North Africa, across inhospitable deserts and hostile borders’. Quick synopsis: a cartel plots to transport uranium across North Africa, and unlikely heroes Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones) and Shazad Latif (Star Trek: Discovery) are suddenly faced with saving the world - hopefully carrying backpacks more nuclear-proof than mine 35 years ago.
For all the fantasy and drama, Casablanca’s a pretty down to earth place, albeit one with a complex heritage. Yanked from a past that began in Phoenician and Roman trading times, emerging as Casa Branca under Portuguese dominion (1515-1755), it was remodelled and sent meteor-like into the stratosphere by the colonial French (1912-56).
Here was a brilliant new-century civic blueprint, reverberating with the fashions and architectural styles of the era, and its newly settled residents, Muslim and Jewish, Moroccan and European. Moroccan independence and the rise of a vibrant self-determining national culture have put their own stamp on the city. Yet glimpses of old remain, in its parks, squares, broad boulevards and outbreaks of glorious if dilapidated Art Deco and Neo-Moorish edifices.
Wander along Boulevard Mohammed V, among whirlpools of pedestrians, and a collage of architectural wonders appears: the clocktower of Casa Voyageurs Station, a 1923 folly rippling with Mauresque exuberance, down to historic minaret details; the sweeping concave facade of the recently unveiled Imperial Hotel, which began life in 1934 as the HQ of Shell petroleum; and Cinema Rialto, with its red and white streamline curves and name writ big in a blocky Aviator-style 30s font, it’s worthy of South Beach Miami’s finest.
For the TikTok generation, Casablanca radiates a gritty new dynamism, from homegrown rap to spray-can civic art. In and around the old medina, and along the coastal corniche, erupt wild visuals of pushy young urban creatives, sometimes covering whole sides of buildings with giant portraits and psychotropic geometric patterns. Anyone needing an expert steer can sign up for a tour with Alouane Blad (Instagram: alouane_bladi).
Later, as the afternoon drains pink from the Atlantic horizon and the massive skies darken overhead, bars and restaurants flicker into light on the corniche, laying out the day’s hauls of fish and seafood. There are traditional haunts where the stooped waiters have toiled loyally for decades, and look-at-me hotspots: at glam institution Cabestan the clamoured-for water’s edge tables are taken by sexy couples clinking glasses of white over doorsteps of rare tuna. The laid-back southern French afternoon vibe fires up into DJ-led bar-lounge nights, borne on pornstar martinis and kumquat mojitos.
You might aim high at Skies, teetering on the uppermost floors of the Kenzi Tower Hotel, serving moreish Moroccan wines and cigars until way late, as the city glitters panoramically beyond. Speakeasy seekers eventually find their way to neon-bathed Nixx, hiding its light under a bushel beside a busy boulevard.
Ultimately, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, most walk into Rick’s Café, in an Old Medina townhouse: founded by an American expat diplomat two decades ago, it’s a paean to Bogart’s original watering hole in 1942’s Casablanca(which was built prosaically by comparison on the Warner Bros backlot in Burbank, California).
Passing under white arches, guests find a palm-lined space lit by dangly chandeliers and beaded lanterns, with tables set for courses of oysters and stroganoff. Diners might ask the pianist to ‘play it again Issam’, and so what if it’s a tourist favourite? Settle in, order a gin martini and drift off into the Casablanca night. You’ll always have Paris.
It was with mild disappointment that I first discovered Casablanca on a June holiday in 1990 - a 20-something backpacker not long returned from travels in India, with a heart full of hippie-ethnic love: for chiselled pink Jaipur palaces, camel treks over the Thar desert and Rajasthani people in their rainbow attire.
While there was nothing intrinsically wrong with Morocco’s Atlantic white city, I’d naively anticipated the exotic incarnation seen on the silver screen - lazy cafes swish-cooled by ceiling fans; souks to vanish into, Harrison-Ford-style. Instead, I found flatpack high-rises and Renault hatchbacks burping fumes at every junction.
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Since then, I’ve travelled in Morocco a few times – taking in the Mediterranean-blue-and-white alleys of Tangier, via medieval Fez to Marrakech with its funky-cool medina, and the remote former Spanish beach town of Sidi Ifni, a clutter of pastel Art Deco down south towards the Western Sahara.
Somehow each trip through historic Morocco has made me more appreciative of busy modern Casablanca so young and urban, self-assured and not put on for tourists – , even if I’ll always adore its classic Bergman-and-Bogart-informed alter ego. It’s that version, laced with intrigue and espionage, which is revisited in Sky Original’s new nail-biter Atomic, parts of which were filmed in the city.
The five-episode thriller promises ’an adrenaline-charged odyssey through the labyrinthine medinas and bustling metropolises of North Africa, across inhospitable deserts and hostile borders’. Quick synopsis: a cartel plots to transport uranium across North Africa, and unlikely heroes Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones) and Shazad Latif (Star Trek: Discovery) are suddenly faced with saving the world - hopefully carrying backpacks more nuclear-proof than mine 35 years ago.
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For all the fantasy and drama, Casablanca’s a pretty down to earth place, albeit one with a complex heritage. Yanked from a past that began in Phoenician and Roman trading times, emerging as Casa Branca under Portuguese dominion (1515-1755), it was remodelled and sent meteor-like into the stratosphere by the colonial French (1912-56).
Here was a brilliant new-century civic blueprint, reverberating with the fashions and architectural styles of the era, and its newly settled residents, Muslim and Jewish, Moroccan and European. Moroccan independence and the rise of a vibrant self-determining national culture have put their own stamp on the city. Yet glimpses of old remain, in its parks, squares, broad boulevards and outbreaks of glorious if dilapidated Art Deco and Neo-Moorish edifices.
Wander along Boulevard Mohammed V, among whirlpools of pedestrians, and a collage of architectural wonders appears: the clocktower of Casa Voyageurs Station, a 1923 folly rippling with Mauresque exuberance, down to historic minaret details; the sweeping concave facade of the recently unveiled Imperial Hotel, which began life in 1934 as the HQ of Shell petroleum; and Cinema Rialto, with its red and white streamline curves and name writ big in a blocky Aviator-style 30s font, it’s worthy of South Beach Miami’s finest.
For the TikTok generation, Casablanca radiates a gritty new dynamism, from homegrown rap to spray-can civic art. In and around the old medina, and along the coastal corniche, erupt wild visuals of pushy young urban creatives, sometimes covering whole sides of buildings with giant portraits and psychotropic geometric patterns. Anyone needing an expert steer can sign up for a tour with Alouane Blad (Instagram: alouane_bladi).
Later, as the afternoon drains pink from the Atlantic horizon and the massive skies darken overhead, bars and restaurants flicker into light on the corniche, laying out the day’s hauls of fish and seafood. There are traditional haunts where the stooped waiters have toiled loyally for decades, and look-at-me hotspots: at glam institution Cabestan the clamoured-for water’s edge tables are taken by sexy couples clinking glasses of white over doorsteps of rare tuna. The laid-back southern French afternoon vibe fires up into DJ-led bar-lounge nights, borne on pornstar martinis and kumquat mojitos.
You might aim high at Skies, teetering on the uppermost floors of the Kenzi Tower Hotel, serving moreish Moroccan wines and cigars until way late, as the city glitters panoramically beyond. Speakeasy seekers eventually find their way to neon-bathed Nixx, hiding its light under a bushel beside a busy boulevard.
Ultimately, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, most walk into Rick’s Café, in an Old Medina townhouse: founded by an American expat diplomat two decades ago, it’s a paean to Bogart’s original watering hole in 1942’s Casablanca(which was built prosaically by comparison on the Warner Bros backlot in Burbank, California).
Passing under white arches, guests find a palm-lined space lit by dangly chandeliers and beaded lanterns, with tables set for courses of oysters and stroganoff. Diners might ask the pianist to ‘play it again Issam’, and so what if it’s a tourist favourite? Settle in, order a gin martini and drift off into the Casablanca night. You’ll always have Paris.