Rad riads and hot hotels: The ultimate foodie’s guide to Marrakesh
Our top columnist on his foodie tour of Marrakesh, from rad riads to hot hotels
When telling my friends, family and colleagues that I was holidaying for a week in Marrakesh, the reaction was unified: “You will hate it”. Well, I am as surprised as all of you to report that I loved the place and would happily return to Morocco to explore more!
Granted, I travelled like a Londoner, with an emphasis on hospitality, fine food and wonderful wines, staying in the most luxurious hotels in the city. I was the only man in the Medina without a backpack – but then I feel the same travelling on the tube nowadays. If you’re a man (or woman) after my own heart, here are four places to enjoy the finer things in Marrakesh.
FAIRMONT ROYAL PALM
Situated 30 mins outside Marrakesh, space is in abundance at this opulent resort. The palm lined driveway is a mile long, before you are greeted with a generous welcome at the dramatic hotel entrance. The sports complex is also vast and comprehensive, spa facilities are plentiful and the pool is huge (the largest in Morocco apparently). It acts as a picturesque backdrop to the L’Olivier Mediterranean seafood restaurant, which is, as the name suggests, surrounded by ancient, gnarled olive trees. Innovative seasonal seafood is king here: sea bream crudo, calamari, Niçoise salad and lobster rolls were all spectacular.
The luxurious suites that overlook the Atlas mountains are also gigantic; the bathrooms and walk-in wardrobes alone are bigger than the average one bedroom flat in Fulham. Suites are only minutes from the main complex, which is home to half a dozen bars and restaurants across a range of cuisines and specialities.
For dinner head to the traditional Al Ain restaurant, where a band of sintir players strum ancient songs. The pea and halloumi salad tastes like a tartar of greens and the chicken kebabs are served with strange, moreish harissa potatoes.
If you are travelling with golf clubs, children, or both, this is the perfect getaway – five star standards throughout with a stylish influence of authentic Moroccan culture shining through.
• Rates start at around £450 per night – visit the website here
IZZA
Entering into the walls of the Medina – the old town – of Marrakech feels a little intimidating at first, like a scene in Homeland. It feels inevitable that you will lose your bearings and become impossibly lost with no access to wifi or 5G.
Thankfully at IZZA, guests are greeted on the streets by the reception team, who guide you through the last 100 yards of maze-like streets to their design-led luxury hotel. Built out of seven riads constructed around feature gardens or pools. Rooms are bijou and combine clean modern design with beautiful original features. You are unmistakably in Morrocco, but a sanitised, ultra luxurious version.
You can expect all mod cons here but it is on the rooftop that IZZA is at its finest – this is the ideal spot for sun worshipping, sundowners a visit to one of the finest restaurants in the city, Noujoum, which offers Mediterranean food heavily influenced by Moroccan ingredients. Expect seafood from Dakhla and meats from Rehamna. Small plates of ceviche, squid and crab were exceptional, as was an outrageously tender chicken tagine.
The hotel has a wonderful history as the former home of Bill Willis, an interior designer known as ‘Morocco’s finest aesthete’, playing host to extravagant parties for the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, John Paul Getty Jr and the Rolling Stones. The property is also home to one of the largest private collections of modern art in the country, which makes for a stimulating backdrop. Perfect for couples or solo travellers discovering the city in style, it also offers excellent value for money.
• Rates start at around £200 per night – visit the website here
TARABEL
If IZZA is a little like The Standard – stateside cool, adult-only and inspired by the freedom seekers of the 1970s – Tarabel is more Hotel Byblos: sophisticated and European. Like IZZA, it is made up of half a dozen riads converted into spacious and beautifully designed suites, with a great rooftop set up.
It’s a hotel for those in the know, is a sanctuary ideally located at the northern top of the Souk (the more upmarket end of town). The Tarabel hammam is renowned amongst locals for being the best in town, a place loved by Mrs Williams and begrudgingly enjoyed by myself.
The hotel is close to some cool restaurants, too: my favourites were El Fenn and Les Jardins de Lotus. Dinner at the hotel is a bespoke poolside affair, beginning with Moroccan salads of carrot, aubergine and courgettes, all served in individual filo baskets and accompanied by cheese, cigars of ratatouille and samosas of spiced lamb. Next was the best of the many chicken tagines we tried, brimming with olives, lemon, cardamom and North African spices. The challenge when eating a tagine is to avoid getting oily saffron stains on your pale clothes; I failed, as I always do. It’s always the last mouthful that gets you.
Most of the wines from Morocco are of an acceptable level. ‘Gris’ is their version of rose and is best enjoyed with a block of ice by a pool. A decent bottle of Viognier popped up at one point, too, but the best wine of the trip was served during dinner at Tarabel: The ‘Chateau la ferme rouge’ Odyssey grand cru, Côtes de Rommani 2024 is well worth keeping an eye out for!
• Rates start at £220 per night – visit the website here
LA SULTANA
For those with the budget, there are a number of great options to stay and play. Outside the Medina, The Oberoi opened in 2019 and La Mamounia, is a fantastic hotel, complete with the wonderful Jean-Georges restaurant L’Asiatique (which is worth a visit even if you’re not a hotel guest).
Inside the Medina, La Sultana is considered the highest end riad in the city and delivers on that reputation. In Marrakesh, space is luxury: this is a land of small people so I was forever banging my bald head on doorframes and ceilings, which became a ballache (and a headache). There were no such problems at La Sultana, a decadent complex featuring 28 rooms and suites across five high ceilinged riads. Breakfast is spectacular and the service is unparalleled. Both in your room and in the wider hotel, it is all about the details, which elevate the experience to six star level. If the Four Seasons created a boutique hotel, this would be it. We enjoyed the Elephant Suite, which has marble floors, jumbo pillars, decorative wooden carvings on the walls and ceilings, and a jacuzzi terrace overlooking palm trees, banana plants and a pool.
Dinner at La Sultana offers one of the most interesting menus in Marrakesh. A brilliant sommelier is also on hand to guide you through both Old World and Moroccan wines, showing admirable enthusiasm given the cards the poor soul has been dealt.
We began with ‘The Modern’ menu: torched avocado fanned over lightly spiced spider crab; lobster ceviche with finger lime caviar; beef tagine with honey, almonds, lemon infused baby tomatoes and black olives; a seafood pastilla (essentially a Moroccan monkfish, squid and prawn pasty) – all absolutely banging.
• Rates begin at £700 per night – visit the website here