Best design hotels in Marrakech

Royal Mansour Marrakech shows what Moroccan craft can do at full scale. Master craftsmen, the maâlems, made the zellige, carved plaster, cedar and brass for 53 riads, each a private house behind its own carved door on a walled estate inside the western ramparts. Paths between the riads stand in for corridors, and underground galleries let staff reach every riad without crossing the guests' way, so the estate reads as a small walled town.

Every riad has its own patio and a roof terrace with a plunge pool over the Medina rooftops; even the smallest, the Superior, adds a sitting room with an open fire and a marble and onyx bathroom. The spa fills 2,500 m² over three floors, with a hammam in white marble and an indoor pool under an orangery canopy, and the gardens cover a little more than 2.5 hectares. The MICHELIN Guide gives it two Keys.

La Mamounia is the city's grand hotel, and its design has layers. The Moroccan railway company began building it in 1923, inside the Medina walls at Bab Jdid, and its architects, Henri Prost and Antoine Marchisio, married Moroccan craft to Art Deco. Jacques Garcia reworked it from 2006 to 2009, and Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku redesigned the restaurants, bars and public rooms from 2020 to the centenary in 2023.

The rooms have painted zouak ceilings, mashrabiya screens and marble bathrooms, each with a bath and a separate shower. Le Churchill is fitted out as a Pullman carriage in smoky oak and black marble, a nod to the railway company that built the hotel, and L'Italien is a light-filled trattoria with cat frescoes. The MICHELIN Guide gives it three Keys, its highest rank.

Nobu Hotel Marrakech is the modern one. The round, rose-coloured building in Hivernage opened as Nobu in January 2023, and inside Moroccan tilework, carved plaster and pillars meet Japanese restraint, with a towering bonsai in the lobby. All 71 keys are suites, in dark wood, patterned tiles and ruby and plum fabrics.

The building's shape does the rest. The circular roof is a 360-degree terrace with a round pool, cabanas and the Atlas on the southern skyline on a clear day, and below ground The Pearl Spa covers more than 2,000 m², with a heated mosaic pool and a hammam. Most suites look to the Atlas Mountains or the Koutoubia minaret. It suits anyone who likes design sleek, with the Medina about five minutes away by petit taxi.

Palais Namaskar is design as landscape. Opened in April 2012 on a five-hectare site beyond the Palmeraie, it was laid out on Feng Shui principles, with Oriental, Moorish and Andalusian lines outside and calm contemporary rooms inside. Water runs through everything: lakes, cascades and reflecting pools wind through the gardens and around the buildings, and the still water mirrors the domes and colonnades.

Inside, the fine-dining room, Le Namaskar, is minimal, with drapery and Murano chandeliers, and the rooftop Nomad Bar is a modern, minimal terrace over the palms. The palaces carry golden domes over their master suites. Every one of the 41 rooms, suites, villas and palaces has its own terrace, and most of the suites and villas have a pool of their own.

Inara Camp is the desert's take on design. Its 19 tents and suites stand on the stony Agafay plateau, and the interiors were designed from local crafts, wood and iron gathered in the countryside, stone and every shade of brown. The tents are spaced apart and face out over the desert, with the restaurant on the higher ground above them.

The pools are part of the design: the Desert Lagoon is cast from sand and quartz in a porous resin so that it feels like a beach, looking over the canyon, and the Infinity Pool has a bar and the desert beyond it. Both are heated to 26°C all year. Dinner is in the Circle, the camp's shared living space, by a campfire and candlelight. The High Atlas runs along the horizon on clear days.