Catering Amers, the culinary complementarity of Spain and Morocco

Amer Bouhlal and Butsaina Boughdadi are partners, a marriage, entrepreneurs and part of what is a highly recommended catering company that is working here in Tangier. They started studying and working in Spain before coming to Tangier and setting up a thriving business. Those of us who have tried their catering can attest that the quality is excellent.

How does this catering project start? What are your origins? I think Amer is the head chef and Butsaina swapped his job at the bank for this new job. 

AMER: It all started because of my devotion to cooking. I've always liked it and I've studied it.  That's where it all comes from. I have studied with the best chefs in Barcelona, for example, Joan Roca who has 3 Michelin stars and who was my cooking teacher. 

I have always been a cook and after many years we decided to return to Tangier and set up a good catering business here because this city where we were born deserves it. 

Butsaina, you prefer a catering business to a bank. What made you change?

BUTSAINA: Like him, my colleague and my partner, who is devoted to cooking, mine has always been marketing, vis a vis, contact with clients. I swapped one job for another. I was working in finance, I also had a project with my sister, but then we met and I fell in love with his world, the world of cooking. You conquer a woman through her stomach. I was swept away by her world. 

Where were you working in Spain?

B: I studied and started working at Barclays in Granada. Then I went to Barcelona and because of the financial crash in 2008 I returned to Granada and set up a small business with my sister. It was a cyber, a kind of coworking, but it wasn't a good idea. It was something timeless. 

The best thing about that cyber was that the first clients were the Amer sisters, and they were the ones who introduced us to each other. That's where we met and started our life. We got married, we had our daughter and on a return boat trip, when we came here to Tangier to visit the family, the little girl told us that she wanted to be with her grandparents and her family. The truth is that whenever we came here we didn't see why not; Tangier was very virgin in our idea of catering. In the end, those 35 minutes that the trip lasted gave us the opportunity to decide something that we are very happy with today. 

Amer, when you were in Barcelona, what was your perception and your objectives, what sacrifices did you have to make to become a good chef?

A: Sacrifices, quite a lot. Nobody understands that your son wants to be a chef because everyone wants him to be a lawyer or a doctor, but I had it very clear from the moment I finished high school that I wanted to be a chef. In the end I decided to study cooking, I looked at the schools and they told me that Girona or Barcelona, in Catalonia, were at the top at that time. I decided to study cooking there.

What kind of cuisine did you study?

A: I studied Mediterranean cuisine.

Where did you start working?

A: I started working on the Costa Brava, because we lived there and Girona was next to it. In my first hotels and restaurants where I worked, the idea was to study in winter and work on the coast in summer. When I finished my studies, it's true that I went straight to some good restaurants. 

I went more into the hotel business, because in hotels you grow a little bit more: you start as a cook, head chef and become a chef. I worked in big hotel chains, like Meliá, where I spent four or five years, first in Barcelona and then I went to Granada, in the Sierra Nevada. When I was with them, I worked in winter at the Sierra Nevada and in summer at the Meliá in Granada. 

And that's where the idea of catering came up. I started to see it better and I decided to learn and focus on catering for the last three years.

Butsaina, you mentioned that you decided to travel to Tangiers in the 35 minutes that the boat trip took. What did you think, Amer? Did you know what you were exposing yourselves to?

A: I'm going to say something that the good chefs always told us: "star restaurants don't make money, they make fame and prestige". If you look at Joan Roca and the Roca family, from the beginning they have had a small restaurant that is the one that gives the most. Other chefs, one I know who has three Michelin stars has a chicken rotisserie and he didn't say so, despite the fact that the rotisserie made him more money than the Michelin-starred restaurant. That's prestige, that's true, and all of us chefs like to have our touch, but to make a living you have to make money. 

How long have you been in Tangier as Amers Catering?

B: 8 and a half years. We arrived on 15 January 2015. 

How much money did you have to set up the business?

B: We arrived with a well-prepared truck with some of the material we needed, because the sector was very new here at the time. We brought everything with us: a lorry full of material and we started with that. But we brought less than 1,000 euros in our pockets. We had a family car, we sold it and exchanged it for an industrial car, half a van, and we started as it was.

What dishes can anyone who wants to hire Amers catering find?

A: We have been evolving. We started with an idea and, as they say, as time goes by you get on track or the idea changes. We came as a caterer focused, above all, on European-style weddings, but when we got into Morocco there are always roots and religion and everything changes a little bit. In the end we ended up catering for companies, schools and weddings, but only the exclusive ones for people, for example, Europeans or Asians who want to have a wedding here in Morocco. 

We came with the idea of doing European cuisine, because there was a lack of it here. First of all because of my studies; I haven't mastered Moroccan cuisine enough, so we have continued with our line of European and Mediterranean cuisine.

B: We have a style for each catering. There is catering for small celebrations, small charming events. Those are more like tapas, and it is true that we were pioneers in the idea of having tapas and drinking, and that creates a very nice bond. We have also been offering individual dishes, unlike what is done in Morocco, where in a celebration practically everything is served in the middle. 

Amer has been a bit strict. He has stuck very much to the idea of a single dish at these celebrations because it is what he knows how to do and what he wants to do. After eight years in the market, we have always come across a customer who has more purchasing power and wants another idea, but we always slow down, go back and ask ourselves, what is it that we have come here to do? This is what we like to do: parties, tapas and if it's a dinner, everyone with their own individual dish because that's what characterises us. 

We have tried to change, not only at the customer's request, but then we have lost some of our identity. And we have said again: "this does not characterise us". We prefer to earn less and do what we really like and what we came here to do. We conceive our place here as if we have a role to play: this is what we want to do, this is what we came here to do and this is what we want to make a living from. 

What is that role?

A: To teach people what we've learned, to give good, quality food. There are a lot of people who go there just to eat, but I'm not one to eat good, nice and cheap. So, we play well on the quality of the product. We have a gigantic sea here in Morocco and some magnificent fish products, why not put a prawn like they do in Cadiz and Huelva? We have a product that is worth it and we play with quality.

Can you be an example of complementarity between Spain and Morocco?

A: I consider myself an ambassador of Spain in Morocco as well as an ambassador of Morocco in Spain. Everything I know about Morocco I pass on when I go to Spain and vice versa. We are often referred to as "Spanish catering".

B: We give all the knowledge, especially Amer because that is what characterises us as a chef. I can write, I can read, but the product that is sold here, at the end of the day, if it is not good, there is no way out. 

Everything we know how to do we owe 100% to Spain. I, for example, have studied here in a Spanish school, he has studied in a Moroccan one and we have been educated here because obviously the first education is given by the family. Of course, that runs through the veins, you can't forget it and it is infinitely appreciated. We believe that we have been given a good education and that is what we carry with us. Complementary to that first education at that stage is everything we have learnt at a business level, at a work level, at a cooking level, we have learnt there. So why not take everything we have learned there to Morocco? Even the working style, even the way of dealing with the worker, because we think that there is life beyond. 

We open our minds a bit more and we believe that we have a great example 14 kilometres away of how to do things differently and here we have everything we need. We have first-class people, we have kids who are very good people, who have a good base and who are learning.

A: They want to learn something different, and if you teach them something that is not taught here, they follow you, they learn and feel grateful.

Were you affected in any way by the political problems between Spain and Morocco?

A: I think civil society goes one way and politicians the other. 

There are more than a million Spaniards who come to Morocco for tourism and almost 800,000 Moroccans who go to Spain for tourism. Morocco's evolution and progress must be made known in Spain.

B: Morocco has made an incredible turnaround, and speaking more particularly of Tangiers, since we came here eight years ago we have seen tremendous progress and change. First of all, first of all, the mentality. We have a very useful tool which is the Internet, which has opened doors for us because from the sofa of your home you can know what is happening on the other side of the world. That helps, and if you also see how a wedding is done on the other side of the world and you have someone here to do it for you, then it's perfect.

As for the political problems, in Morocco we feel Moroccan and in Spain we feel Spanish, we haven't had any problems, on the contrary. We think that we have gone to Spain, we have absorbed, we have learned, we have returned to Morocco and we continue learning. You don't have to choose one side or the other, it's also very good in the middle.

B: Moreover, in Tangiers there is a very large community of foreigners, especially Spaniards and French. We have never had any problems. 

Are your clients here directly Moroccan or do foreign companies or embassies also contract this catering?

B: A: A bit of everything. As far as embassies are concerned, I can tell you that we have done catering in all the consulates in Tangier. The first event was at the honorary consulate of Bosnia. And in the community we have also worked with companies. We have a restaurant in the port of Tangier Med focused only on workers. That's the variety we have in catering: a restaurant, schools and a little bit of everything. 

Now we see that the workshop is equipped with the latest technology. Right now, do you feel competitive, have you met most of your objectives, and how are you consolidating the business?

B: I think we have been growing little by little, consolidating at all times. The team has also played a key role. But we are more about enjoying the journey. It may sound very utopian, but it's the truth. Besides, we are a couple and since we are living it, let's live it well. 

A: Regarding the workshop, it's our crown jewel because we've focused it more on teaching everything we've learned. It's a cooking workshop with everything innovative and modern. In Barcelona, in Madrid, in Paris there will be workshops like this one, but ours is the first of its kind in Morocco. And this is our challenge right now: to instil cooking in people, that they like it and that they learn through cooking workshops.

If we have a Spanish cooking workshop, I give the class; if we have a Japanese cooking workshop, a Japanese chef comes; and if we have a Mexican workshop, a Mexican chef comes.

How would you convince someone who is watching you to hire you for catering?

A: I think that's a bad question for me to answer. Whenever a new client calls and I think about everything behind it, I always answer that it is full because the fewer clients, the better the work in the kitchen. We focus more on quality than quantity.

That's precisely what will be noticeable in the price.

B: In fact, here in Tangiers we have been known to be expensive, but then when we work with the client they say it's not so much, because they see value for money and they see that there is work behind our cuisine. Health is also very important because we are what we eat. 

A: One example I'll give you is schools because that's where it all starts. Children eat at school and what better way to help them eat well and healthy food. They will learn to love food. If you give them juice in a carton, it's very different from giving them natural juice, they will learn to drink it that way from an early age and to appreciate quality.

What do you do when a customer comes to you to attract them?

B: What we offer at Amers is precisely that, the quality of the product and the know-how. When we come to an event, I think we get involved because we love the material and love what you do, and I think that the client also perceives that. Also, making things easier for the client.

A: When the client comes, they know what they want, but we guide them. So it's not just the event itself or the food they want, it's everything. Amers encompasses everything.

B: Since you mention it, apart from workshops, many times a small group of clients come to do a small event or a meeting, they sit with their stool here next to Amer and he prepares tapas. they are at the meeting and in the end the bond between the word and the stomach is something very beautiful. A very nice symbiosis that makes the atmosphere more relaxed. 

We are what you see, we are like that. He is the hand that makes Amers' work and I complement him: that is what we sell to the client. We are what we do, this is our policy. Here the doors are open to everyone. 

If they call you, for example, from Malaga, do you also do this service?

A: It is more complicated. I can recommend a caterer, but above all we invite them to come to Tangier because there is a lot to see here. 

B: We didn't come here to try it out; we came to stay. We have been here for eight years now and we are very happy.