You can't cross the threshold of Rick's Café without feeling transported to Casablanca. The mere mention of the name plunges the visitor into one of the legendary scenes from the legendary film. You'd almost want to go there in a tuxedo and evening gown. In fact, an evening at Rick's Café is, in a way, a preliminary to entering the White City. Although contemporary Casablanca is no longer a territory under Vichy rule, where French and German officers and the underworld cross paths, the film has forever established the name "Casablanca."
Established in an old Moroccan mansion built in 1930 against the ramparts of the old medina, the building has three facades: an entrance opening onto the street, composed of massive wooden doors, which represent those in the film; a facade facing the port, open to the Atlantic; and finally, a narrow access which constituted the old main entrance, now a service entrance.
The sculpted bar, balustrades, balconies, arches and curves, and the play of light and shadow created by the arrangement of plants and lighting make the interior design of Rick's Café a constant homage to the film.
Closing our eyes, we could believe we were projected onto a black and white screen. Contrast effects, light sometimes white, sometimes dark, jazz music – You must remember this, A kiss is just a kiss, A sigh is just a sigh… – the film unfolds within us, images absorbed by our unconscious, now fragments of our collective imagination. Rick's heavy, deep voice, sullen and distraught, declaims: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
It's a true initiation rite! Or how to approach Casablanca through cinema.