Royal Mansour Marrakech was built under the orders of King Mohammed VI, still its principal shareholder, and opened in 2010 on a five-hectare walled estate inside the Medina's western ramparts, on Rue Abou El Abbas Sebti. Lanes take the place of corridors, and 53 riads take the place of rooms, each a private house behind its own carved door. Moroccan master craftsmen, the maâlems, made the zellige, carved plaster, cedar and brass, and underground galleries let housekeepers, butlers and room service reach every riad without crossing the guests' lanes. The MICHELIN Guide gives it two Keys.
The smallest riad is the Superior, 140 m² on three floors, and there are 15 of them: a patio under a retractable glass roof and a sitting room with an open fire on the ground floor, the bedroom with a marble and onyx bathroom and a dressing room above, and a roof terrace with a solarium and a plunge pool looking over the Medina rooftops and, on clear days, to the Atlas. The 19 Premier riads add 35 m², a dining room and a bar around the patio and a shaded tent on the roof. Above them come two-bedroom Privilege riads of 430 m² with a butler, four three-bedroom Prestige riads with a private hammam, a kitchen and a lift, and the 1,800 m² Grand Riad with its own garden and pool. Breakfast is included.
What it is chosen for is a palace lived in as a house. Between the riads, Luis Vallejo's gardens cover a little more than 2.5 hectares around a 30-metre pool with seven private pavilions, and the spa fills 2,500 m² over three floors, with a hammam in white marble and a heated indoor pool under an orangery canopy. Dinner can be Moroccan at La Grande Table Marocaine, overseen by Hélène Darroze, Italian at Sesamo under Massimiliano Alajmo, or French at La Grande Brasserie, and the bars run from an Art Deco main bar to a cigar room and a library. Children aged 4 to 10 have their own club, Le Jardin de Lila.
The trade is the bill and the stairs. A Superior riad costs about €2,300 a night in March 2027, there are only 15, and on some spring dates they are gone, which leaves the Premier at about €2,780. Each one-bedroom riad is on three floors without a lift, and Jemaa el-Fna is a 16-minute walk. For couples and families marking an occasion who want Moroccan craft at its most lavish, and a house of their own to come back to, this is the one to book.
