Could you visit a city, only for a bar in it, and which is also, technically, fictional? Well, I just did!
The recreation of Rick’s Café in Casablanca, Morocco
It’s 12 o’clock on a Wednesday. Regular crowd’s shuffling out. There’s an old man sittin’ next to me. Maybe thinking of his whiskey and trout…
You can sing the lines above to the tune of Billy Joel’s Piano Man (1971), if you like. Because I am talking about a piano man, named Issam Chabaa, who looks a bit like Billy (with a French-beard) himself.
The track he played twice this night, though — much to the expected excitement of everyone — is the soothing, jazz-influenced, ‘As time goes by’. This is at the Rick’s Café in Casablanca, Morocco.
Earlier, I’d requested an encore from Issam.
What did I yell from my seat by the balcony, with majestic columns, arches, overlooking his piano on the ground floor? “Play it again, Sam!”
That movie line is an example of the Mandela Effect. Everybody believes Ingrid Bergman said it in Michael Curtiz’s GOAT classic, Casablanca (1942).
Upon hearing Dooley Wilson (Sam) play the nostalgic number, Ingrid (Ilsa) actually says, “Play it once, Sam, for old time’s sake; play it Sam, ‘As time goes by…’”
I quote from memory. That’s the recall value of Casablanca.
The bar in a still from the 1942 film named after the Moroccan city
At Rick’s, I should’ve yelled, “Play it again, Issam!” He tells me he’s been here, during dinner hours, for over two decades.
As the night ends, just casually chatting with Issam completes my trip to Casablanca. Have you travelled to a city, merely, for a bar in it?
Which is different from how nocturnal creatures definitely visit a nightspot they love — if they happen to be in that town; even if, briefly.
I’m unlikely to skip, say, Down the Road, when in Panjim, or Don Rob’s in Vagator; Someplace Else, or Oly Pub, in Kolkata; Leather Bar in Chennai…
Which is the world’s best-known bar? I’d go with Rick’s in Casablanca — not to be confused with the tavern named after it at Taj Mansingh in New Delhi. I mean the ‘Café Americain’ from the WWII film, that’s wholly set inside that salon, which Rick, as in Humphrey Bogart, owns.
That’s where, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into,” in Casablanca. She, being Ilsa, Rick’s ex-lover, from Paris.
Of course, that bar is fictional. It was a set created by Warner Bros. in LA. I’m sure movie buffs would’ve gone around looking for it in Casablanca. The movie, itself, shows up, before the city, on a Google search.
In 2004, a former American diplomat in Morocco, Kathy Kriger, did the obvious thing. She recreated the interiors of Rick’s Café, not too far from the main seafront in Casablanca.
The exteriors don’t look the same. There are no roulette tables in an ante chamber either. But enough corners & aisles, steps & chandeliers — that soon as you walk in, the film comes alive.
I would’ve loved a drink with the real-life Rick. Kathy passed away in 2018. But then the cool, insouciant Rick himself never drank at his bar — until he bumped into his unrequited love, Ilsa, again.
I remember people ordering champagne cocktails in Casablanca, the movie’s Rick’s — as I do at the Casablanca city’s version.
It tastes more like bourbon than bubbly. Cognac would’ve been the other movie option. I settle for sparkling wine. Sea-food’s the staple cuisine.
As it could’ve been back in Casablanca of December, 1941 (from the film) — an escape route from France to the Americas, once Nazis have occupied Paris — hence, a city of thugs, brokers, rebels, and servicemen that congregates at Rick’s.
Like most economic/financial capitals, Casablanca of 2026, I notice, develops a healthy underbelly in the after hours, for the solitary, male business traveller, while the rest of town inevitably shuts down for the long day of work to follow.
Besides a 1986 mosque, there’s nothing particularly touristy about Casablanca, the most populous Moroccan city. Even my airport cabbie’s surprised I’m not here for work. Can’t call it a party place either.
What about Rick’s then? It’s char-ming, just like the Moroccan people, whose love language, evidently, includes Hollywood movies, Bollywood songs, and loads of sarcasm.
Muneer, the usher at Rick’s, on the way out, sings for me, ‘Main shayar toh nahin’. The track at the nightclub in the town, Fez, screams, ‘You’re my Chhammak Chhallo!’ Everybody, in general, goes, “Shah Rukh, Kajol…”
I’m not surprised.
Driving across Morocco on a family trip, we stop by at the centuries’ old kasbah in Aet Ben Haddao, where several films have been shot, including Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. I see a gate from the sets of Lawrence of Arabia still intact since 1972.
Likewise, with the Buddhist palace from Martin Scorsese’s Kundun (1997), among preserved sets from the old Gladiator to the new Ben Hur, at Atlas Studios in Ouarzazate (‘Morocco’s Hollywood’).
And yet, no movie monument, to me, tops Rick’s Café. Yeah, I know, expensive tourist trap — but I’m a tourist; and where else would I rather be trapped, if not a bar, chatting movies/Casablanca!
I’ve friends who held bachelors’ party at the ‘Hangover suite’ in Bangkok, while there is no suite for a setting in Hangover’s Thailand sequels. Here’s looking at you, kids!
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
