The catch at Nobu Hotel Marrakech

The round roof is the hotel's social centre: a pool by day, then a restaurant and bar with curated DJ sets after dark. The rooftop bar runs from 10am to 1am from Sunday to Thursday and until 2am on Fridays and Saturdays, and the rooftop restaurant keeps the same late hours. Downstairs, Nobu Marrakech and the Nobu Bar also stay open until 1am, or 2am at weekends. After dark the music on the roof turns club-style and plays well into the early hours. This is a lively hotel by design, in Hivernage, the quarter of the city's late restaurants and clubs, and the sound on the roof is part of what it sells.

The hotel stands on the corner of Avenue Echouhada and Rue du Temple in Hivernage, the garden quarter of hotels just west of the Medina walls. On foot from the door, the Koutoubia is 13 minutes away, Jemaa el-Fna 20, Le Jardin Secret 27 and the Bahia Palace 29, all on flat city pavements, and the Jardin Majorelle is 38. By petit taxi, Jemaa el-Fna, the station and the Jardin Majorelle are each about five minutes away off-peak. The trade runs both ways: a hotel on two city streets rather than in the lanes, and no riad courtyard or roof over the souks. For a Medina stay under the same name, the Nobu Riad, a six-suite house about 5 minutes away by car, is let only as a whole house.

The Junior and Deluxe Junior Suites look to the Atlas Mountains or the Koutoubia minaret, and the Deluxe One Bedroom Suites to the city, with the Koutoubia from the veranda in select suites. The building is round, though, and the suites on its north and north-west sides look over neighbouring streets and apartment blocks rather than either landmark. The High Atlas lies 50 to 65 km to the south, so it fills one side of the view and shows best on clear days, with snow on the peaks in winter and spring. The sun sets in the west, over the city and the plain, not over the mountains, which take the evening light instead.

A Junior Suite with breakfast costs about €735 a night for two in mid-March, and March to May is the dearest stretch of the year, with April and May at the March rate. January and February run about 40% below spring, and November and June sit in between. A city tax of 49.50 dirhams, about €4.50, per person per night is paid at the hotel on arrival and is not part of the room price. In mid-March most suites sell for two nights at least, and the family suites for four. The hotel is open all year, so the cheaper winter months are a real choice.

The Rooftop Garden accepts payment in Moroccan dirhams only, with no foreign currency, and asks for elegant casual dress, with no shorts. Nobu Marrakech asks for smart casual: closed shoes and sleeved T-shirts for men, and no flip-flops, swimwear or sportswear, for children as well as adults. The round pool on the roof is open all year, from 10am to 6pm, after which the terrace turns to dinner, cocktails and DJ sets, so it is a pool for the day rather than a late swim. The sushi bar keeps the same daytime hours, noon to 6pm. Below ground, The Pearl Spa has a heated indoor mosaic pool.