Najat Kaanache

Chef and Owner, Nur Restaurant Fez, MOROCCO

‘Nur’, which means light in Arabic is the restaurant owned by Internationally renowned Chef Najat Kaanache. Born and raised in the Basque Country, with Moroccan ancestry, the chefs career has taken her all over the world where she has trained with some of the world’s top kitchens including Alinea, the French Laundry, El Bulli and Noma (to name a few).  She has enjoyed the spotlight as a celebrity both as a television cook, but also an actress in her early career. She settled in Fez, to open her signature restaurant Nur, which shines a light on  Moroccan gastronomy – which she describes as a “maze of pathways where we blur the boundaries between art and gastronomy, between the traditional and modern culinary worlds”. Chef Kaanache is proud of the cultural and agricultural diversity of Morocco. She affectionately refers to her country as "the mouth of Europe", forged through its unique confluence of colonial cultures. In the words of famed Chef Ferran Adria, "Najat represents the soul of Morocco through the language of the kitchen."