La Mamounia stands in gardens that began as an 18th-century wedding present: Sultan Mohammed Ben Abdallah gave the orchard to his son, Prince Al-Mamoun, who used it for open-air receptions. In 1923 the Moroccan railway company began building a hotel on the site, inside the Medina walls at Bab Jdid, to designs by Henri Prost and Antoine Marchisio that join Moroccan craft with Art Deco. Winston Churchill wintered here, painting from its balconies, and Alfred Hitchcock filmed scenes of The Man Who Knew Too Much here. Jacques Garcia reworked the hotel from 2006 to 2009, and Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku redesigned its restaurants, bars and public rooms from 2020 to the centenary in 2023.
There are 135 rooms, 71 suites and three riads, with painted zouak ceilings, mashrabiya screens and marble bathrooms, each with a bath and a separate shower. The Classic Rooms, 28 to 40 m² with twin beds, sit from garden level to the first floor on the entrance side, and the Superior Rooms, the same size with a king-size bed, on the second to fourth floors; both look over Hivernage. The Deluxe Rooms, 30 to 45 m², come in three views: the Koutoubia, over the minaret or the gardens below it, the Park over the gardens and the Atlas, and the Agdal over the pool on the upper floors. Suites start at more than 50 m², the six Exceptional Suites include the Churchill, and each 700 m² riad has its own heated pool and butler.
It is chosen as Marrakech's icon for what lies behind the walls. The gardens hold olive trees two centuries old, orange, lime and palm trees, roses and bougainvillea and a 1,500 m² kitchen garden that supplies the restaurants, with the Koutoubia minaret rising to the north and the Atlas on the southern horizon. The outdoor pool, for guests only, is heated to 28°C all year. The 2,500 m² spa has two hammams, a private hammam and an indoor pool. Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Simone Zanoni run two of the four restaurants, Pierre Hermé the two tea rooms, and the Churchill Bar pours champagne and cocktails until 1am. The MICHELIN Guide gives it three Keys, its highest rank, and the Koutoubia is 9 minutes away on foot.
The trade is the price and the fine print. Breakfast is extra, the entry rooms face Hivernage, not the gardens, and the restaurants and bars ask for elegant dress, with no shorts after 6pm and no flip-flops. The indoor pool is for over-18s, or 16 with an adult, and there is no kids' club. Book it for a first Marrakech trip or winter sun in grand style, and take a Park Deluxe Room over the gardens.
