Dar Rhizlane

Dar Rhizlane is a small hotel in Hivernage, the garden district between Guéliz and the Medina walls, set back from a tree-lined street behind tall old eucalyptus and a wrought-iron gate. It dates from 2001 and was conceived as a palace-style house rather than a conventional hotel, and its oldest part is a colonial wing from 1942 that now holds a lounge with a fireplace and a dining room with Art Deco detail. The owner designed every room himself, and the house is laid out around water gardens of lilies and papyrus, grapefruit trees and palms, with a zellige fountain at the entrance.

The rooms carry the names of Oriental perfumes, Musk, Sandalwood and Jasmine, and of heroines and heroes, women's names in the left wing and the names of mythical heroes in the right, and every one opens onto an Andalusian garden or a flower-filled terrace. The Serail rooms, about 25 m² in the left wing, have marble bathrooms with a bath and a walk-in shower. La Favorite, about 35 m², adds a separate sitting room to a king-size bedroom. The Orient Suites, about 64 m², have a bedroom and a sitting area in warm tones with copper and gold, and large windows over the gardens. The White Suite, about 143 m², is decorated entirely in white and has its own jacuzzi and views over the garden and the pool.

It is chosen as the insider's address: a house that feels private rather than grand, a short drive from the Medina, with a kitchen that gives guests a reason to stay in for dinner. Le Mimouna, the restaurant, cooks inventive Moroccan dishes with seasonal produce in a room of brown zellige, leather and wood, and in good weather meals move out to the terrace beside the pool. There is a wine list of Moroccan and international bottles and a bar, a hammam and treatment rooms in the spa, a gym, and cooking classes in the hotel's own kitchen, where you eat what you cooked in the garden or on the terrace.

The trade is distance. Jemaa el-Fna is about 32 minutes away on foot, so a taxi is the usual way into the Medina, about 5 minutes to Place de Foucauld beside the square on clear roads and nearer 15 when the traffic is heavy. Guests also say breakfast varies little from day to day. Book it for the garden, the quiet and dinner at home after a day in the souks; skip it if you want to step out of the door into the Medina's lanes.