El Harissa Market Cafe

Fabulous place. The restaurant is beautiful. They sell North African porcelain artifacts, plates, books, spices, herbs in addition to serve delicious food. The menu includes Moroccan and Tunisian items. The Arab coffee is exquisite. Their fish pies, lasagna, and lentil soup are very tasty and fresh. The tablecloths are cute and reminiscent of Greek and Italian restaurants. The owners are lovely, welcoming, and friendly, adding a personal touch and taking a genuine interest in conversations. The staff is friendly, caring, and helpful. Service is fast and food is friendly. We were new to Ann Arbor and the owners welcomed us and chatted with us. A wonderful experience overall.

Visited yesterday after 5 years of planning and it surpassed my expectations. We got toum, muhammara, meatballs, couscous, mashed eggplant, crispy cauliflower with harissa dip, all to-go. Everythibg was delicious, the eggplant dip's flavor was overpowering though. The lovely lady warmed everything up for our picnic. The ice cream offerings were a pleasant surprise and the highlight of my trip to this cute store plus cafe. The flavors I sampled and loved are - apricot peach cardamom, Mexican Chipotle chocolate, spiced hazelnut and fig, medjool dates and baklava. Baklava ice cream is the star. Their lavender honey and pistachio were mild in flavor. They have a restroom for customers at the back of their store. They also sell a variety of items aside from the food.

They have Rosewater Baklava Gelato & Tahini Hot Chocolate. I repeat: ROSEWATER BAKLAVA GELATO & TAHINI HOT CHOCOLATE. I don’t think you need any other reason to go. Everything is delicious & the staff are friendly & helpful.

El Harissa is one of Ann Arbor’s most precious gems. Not only can you pick up uniquely delicious Tunisian/Moroccan cuisine, you can treat yourself to a great selection of GELATO by the scoop! The staff and owners (family owned and managed) consistently have an excellent reputation for genuine kindness and great service. The food is prepared fresh daily and served in various proportions takeout style (refrigerated or hot if specified), but there is limited cozy dining space and table service if you choose to dine there. I love the salads, chicken tagine, everyone loves the spice mushrooms! Try the myriad of fresh accompaniments such as their namesake (harissa!), carrot dip (huriyya?), garlic dip (labneh), and hummus!

Need good gifts? The accompanying Market in the cafe is great and has new unique, high quality olive oils as well as unique Tunisian finds that the family personally finds on travel. I bought an awesome collection of wooden spoons and forks that have served me well for years now. I also buy olive oil there.

My friends and extended family have been amazed that with only one visit, one of the family owner members remembered their name and profession upon their return. It is that kind of vibe!

Delicious eats with a solid selection of grocery items as well if that piques your interest. They have gelato and coffee options as well which was a great way to end the meal. Looking forward to visiting again.

Bacalao pie and meatballs with couscous is what we ordered. Both were delicious 👌🏽

Truly fantastic. The best place in town. The food is scrumptious--all cooked from scratch and inventive, delicious, flavorful. Also, THE BEST GELATO IN TOWN, with the most original and fabulous flavors!! Run by an incredible family — friendly service, lovely attention to detail, accommodating and all-around really good people. The dine-in space is cozy--surrounded by art and plants. Plus, they have a wonderful market where I like to do my holiday shopping and buy olive oil. Do not miss out on a stop to El Harissa. They are a gem of a restaurant—truly the best of Ann Arbor.

Finally visited today after wanting to come here for a while and we were not disappointed! We were greeted by the friendly staff who kindly explained the menu to us. The food was great! So fresh and hearty. Nice portion sizes and good prices. The owners, Khaled and Susan, were so kind and welcoming and offered great conversations and tea. In addition to the amazing food and atmosphere are the great finds ranging from ceramics, hand-made jewelry, spices, various harissa pastes and more! We will definitely be back. Thank you guys!

To all of you who live in Ann Arbor, I am SO jealous. If you are a local and you haven’t visited El Harissa yet…you must!!! Everything is made from scratch, with all the love that comes from a small family business. The market and restaurant is simple and charming. The food was absolutely amazing. The hummus and whipped feta blanco was smooth and flavorful. We had the lasagna verde, Merguez meatballs and the Maghrebi Harissa Chili. All three were fantastic, but the chili just made my night! My husband couldn’t stop talking about the meatballs. The black tea and saffron rice pudding was a fun twist from the your usual rice pudding, loved it. The baklava rose gelato was incredible. We also had their mint tea and tahini hot chocolate. Pita bread is soft and fluffy, made from scratch. At the end of the meal we purchased several hard to find spices and ingredients from their market. El Harissa will certainly become a permanent stop on our trips through Michigan.

This place is lovely. I attended an event that had their food and everything was just... special. Each thing I tried had a little touch, the salad with some beautiful bits of date and pomegranate jewels poking out. The choice of seasonings and herbs 🌿 everything so fresh, made with care and love.

We started with dessert first, and it was so hard to decide what kind of gelato to try! We sampled the coffee bean, the lemon mint avocado, the spiced hazelnut fig, the rosewater baklava w/pistachio, the lemon sorbetto with crystalized ginger 😋 we basically wanted to try everything! They are all incredible. We'll just have to go back...

For dinner we tried the roasted root vegetable & date tagine, the chicken tagine, the Chicken Chermoula, sliced roasted chicken that had a heavenly herbed Chermoula dressing paired with it over a bed of saffron infused rice. I'm sensitive to flavor enhancers and the rice tastes like it has boullioin flavoring, but not everyone is sensitive like I am. The taste was great though. We ordered toum, the delicious house made garlic sauce.

We also got the Berber Terrine du Poulet made with ground chicken which is combined with green onions, egg, fenugreek &other curry spices & mixed with shredded potato. We loved the sauce that came with it.

Our order came with fresh, warm pita bread and there was also a little side of the harissa dip. So good! 🤤 I had to go back and order a full toum and harissa dip to go, so my parents could enjoy;)

I definitely recommend this place. The shop is so cool and we loved the pottery and all the other offerings.

❤🌿Bonus I adore that they participate in the A2R3 initiative, that lets you reuse containers so it's more ecologically friendly.

Go to El Harissa Market Cafe, for a meal, gifts, takeout and catering! 11/10 We loved everything

The short take is hillarysa market and Cafe is a gem way out by Speedway on Maple and Miller.
The long story is I wanted meat an thought a hamburger. But I'm gluten free so only certain places have been free buns etc. I knew Harissa was close to me so i went in bought three lovely lamb beef gluten-free meatballs on a bed of perfect saffron rice. as I enjoyed my meal I surrounded by beautiful handcrafted gift ideas and imported Delicacies. I think I might make this my regular Friday treat.

Amazing experience for my wife and I. Very generous and warming people with an eclectic and very beautifully tribal atmosphere. Yousef and his two parents were such a pleasure to meet. Very sweet people, and very tasty food. Will be back inshallah🇧🇭🇩🇿

I'm a regular at the Hair Spot Barber Shop next door to El Harissa and today, for the first time, shopped there at the request or my wife who had eaten their humus and pita recently and loved it. The person at the counter and another in the kitchen were friendly, personable and very helpful. I also purchased a freshly made lentil soup and a root vegetable dish - for which they provided printed heating instructions. As soon as I got home we broke out the food. Delicious!! This is a hidden gem in my opinion. Just like the Juicy Kitchen, which is also located there, this needs to be a regular for locals and is definitely worth the drive if you're a little further away!

Everything is delicious. A ton of amazing dips. Nice staff.
Very expensive for very small portions, though, so we won’t come very often, but if you only care for the quality and taste - the place is wonderful!

My husband and I stopped in for dinner on a whim one evening to try something new. WOW. Everything we ordered was incredibly delicious. Food is displayed in a case by the register so you can select what you want and pay by weight. We were overwhelmed with all the options so we told the person at the counter all the things we wanted to try and then he said he'd put together a sampling of everything for us. It was the perfect amount of food (we were both stuffed for a great price).

The shelves were interesting to look at too. The store section features grocery and retail items from Michigan and northern Africa.

Service was amazing and the food was top-notch. Will definitely be back.

Great little place. The food is excellent and the staff was really friendly. The ice cream they have also has a ton of unique flavors. Definitely a spot to check out!

El Harissa is my favorite restaurant in Ann Arbor! Amazing food, flavor, and vibe! The staff are all wonderful and very kind and friendly. The market has wonderful, unique goods and the food is A1. Special shout out to the Chicken Chermoula w/Rice and Lasagna Verde! I also really appreciate how clean the environment is. Thanks El Harissa! You guys rock.

El Harissa provided catering for an event in my department for ~30 people. It was GREAT! Multiple people said that they liked the food and it was a good change from the regular places that we frequently order from. They have a lot of options that accommodate different dietary restrictions. The Chicken chermoula and baklava were awesome! The two people who delivered were very nice as well. I will definitely be recommending El Harissa for future events in our department!

Very welcoming and friendly staff. Lovely family run restaurant with great flavors and wide range of foods. I loved the gelato and everything we tried today.

If you're in the area, go to this joint!!! Great food and service. Most of their menu is 'home made' and delicious 😋

I went to El Harissa with my cousins today and we loved the dinner entrees and the gelato flavors! I LOVE the Rosewater Baklava and Mango sorbetto flavors! I will be back to try other flavors!