Interview: Chris Padgett, Founder of Savor Morocco
Chris Padgett and his wife are the owners of Savor Morocco, a cooking school and guest house in Meknes, Morocco. He took a few minutes to answer some questions for us about his business and his tips for people traveling to Morocco for the first time.
Tell us a bit about your cooking school and guest house, Savor Morocco. What led you to opening such a business in Morocco?
Back when we lived in Texas, I owned a catering business that was fairly successful. We were able to sell it for quite a profit. For many years, I have been in the food service industry / customer service business. Both my wife and I wanted to live overseas for a season of our lives. When our kids were young, we decided it would be a great time to move and raise them in multi-lingual country. We moved over to Morocco with numerous business ideas, eventually landing on the cooking school / guest house.
Our cooking school has been running for almost 3 years. During this time, we have held close to 200 classes, teaching countless foreigners how to create some amazing Moroccan cuisine. People come in and learn how to prepare the traditional mint tea, an appetizer and main dish. At the same time, they learn about the history of the dishes along with various cultural differences, sprinkled in with some great stories of Morocco’s past.
The guest house is located on several floors above the cooking school. It has been a great safe haven for travelers throughout their trek. Often times, we have groups stay for extended amounts of time and use Meknes as a base to see numerous surrounding towns and villages, including Fes. One of the great aspects of our guest house is that we provide much more space than a traditional hotel room, along with a full-scale kitchen to prepare your own meals and facilities to wash your own clothes in the midst of those long trips.
(more…)
