26 places, from £85 to £383 a night.
Ten rooms, a roof pool facing the Koutoubia, and everywhere a bold design stance: deep green, brass, golden mosaic, bathtubs set in the middle of the room. The Mellah Hotel turns its back on the classic riad decor for a designer-house aesthetic, in the old Jewish quarter. A sharp address, at a high price, chosen for its style.
The PL Place is closer to a retreat than a hotel: only nine rooms, tucked in a dense Palmeraie garden, around a pool and a domed pavilion. The heavily decorated suites play caidal tents, patina and lanterns, each with its green corner. An intimate, densely decorated address, for cutting off from the city rather than visiting it.
The Dar Rhizlane is a palace guesthouse of Hivernage, set in a large garden planted with palms where the pool lights up at nightfall. Around twenty rooms, a spa with hammam, a house kitchen served at the water's edge: this is 5-star comfort on a human scale, a few minutes from the centre without the medina's clamour.
In the Palmeraie, fifteen minutes from the medina, Les Deux Tours is the house designed in the 1980s by the architect Charles Boccara: 44 rooms spread across pisé pavilions, three hectares of Andalusian gardens, patios, pools and a heated pool. You come for the calm and the hand of an architect, not for palace living.
The medina's first guesthouse, opened in 1946 at Bab Doukkala, La Maison Arabe is an institution two steps from Jemaa el-Fna. Twenty-six rooms and suites around patios, a cookery school known well beyond the city, a spa and a piano bar. The large pool sits elsewhere: at the country club in the Palmeraie.
Twenty minutes from Marrakech, at the foot of the Atlas, the Fairmont Royal Palm is a resort where the hotel becomes the destination: 18-hole golf, 3,500 m² spa, seven tables and broad pools facing the mountains. You book it for what you do not leave, not for slipping into the medina.
The Ksar Anika is a large Mellah riad playing the boutique-hotel card: eighteen rooms across two patios, a pool under a glazed roof, a spa with hammam and a table. You are two steps from the Bahia palace, in a quarter in full change, for an entry rate that stays reasonable for the class.
In Hivernage, along the Menara gardens, the Four Seasons lays out 141 rooms and suites across sixteen hectares of planted palm grove. A single-storey address, built around its pools and its ochre pavilions, ten minutes by car from the medina without its bustle at the door.
Set in a palm grove north of Marrakech, the Tigmiza is a red pisé palace tucked under the palms, with three pools, a spa and rooms treated as works of their own. Suites, bungalows and villas spread through a garden, fifteen minutes from the centre. A calm-and-decor address, for anyone accepting to sleep outside the walls, off the medina's buzz.
In the Palmeraie, ten minutes by car from Jemaa el-Fna, the Villa Al Assala holds ten junior suites set in a large garden, around a domed pavilion and a heated pool. A human-scale address, betting on quiet and green rather than the number of rooms.
Behind a Kasbah wall lies what the medina rarely delivers: a three-thousand-square-metre garden, planted with orange trees, around a heated pool. Les Jardins de la Médina occupy a former palace turned into a thirty-six-room hotel, minutes from the Saadian Tombs. A green oasis in the old town, for anyone wanting space without leaving the walls.
The Domaine des Remparts is a garden before it is a hotel: two hectares of palm grove and olive trees, with an Atlas view, on the Fès road on the outskirts. Here, each unit has its walled garden, terrace and fireplace. Two pools, a spa, a free shuttle to the centre. An intimate green 5-star, closer to rest than to the large resort.
The Al Maaden Villa Hotel runs on a simple idea: every unit is a stand-alone villa, each with its private pool, fireplace and kitchen. About forty contemporary medina-inspired villas, set on the Al Maaden golf course south of the city, between lawns and contemporary sculptures. A residential 5-star, with spa, ten minutes from town by car.
A member of Relais & Châteaux, the Palais Ronsard cultivates a theatrical luxury in the Palmeraie: marble, black lacquer, chandeliers, rooms personalised one by one, and a garden where the pool stretches between palms. Twenty-seven rooms, a large spa, private-house service. A high-end address, at its price, for anyone after quiet and set-dressing rather than the medina down the lane.
About thirty kilometres from Marrakech, set in the Agafay desert, La Pause is an ecolodge deliberately off the grid: no electricity, no Wi-Fi, pisé lodges and tents lit by candle, two pools facing the stony hills. You come here for the silence and the sky, not for city-hotel comforts.
Les Jardins de la Koutoubia is a medina institution: a large 5-star hotel planted at the foot of the minaret, three minutes from Jemaa el-Fna. Around a hundred rooms, a pool in a tree-lined patio, a spa, and roof terraces looking down on the Koutoubia. You get the comfort of a real hotel and the location of a riad, without the lanes.
Ten minutes from central Marrakech, on the Amizmiz road, the Selman lines up around sixty rooms and villas around an 80-metre pool and stables of pure-bred Arabian horses. Architecture signed Jacques Garcia, a 1,200 m² Chenot spa: an estate given to wellness, off the buzz.
The Hotel Jadali & Spa is a small 5-star in Hivernage with a green facade, halfway between the boutique hotel and the family address. Fifty-two rooms, a spa with hammam, a pool and a roof where you can spot the Koutoubia. Care for children, a warm welcome, a more intimate scale than the great hotels of the quarter, walking distance from the medina.
In Hivernage, a hundred metres from the Congress Palace and ten minutes on foot from the medina, the Mövenpick Mansour Eddahbi is a 503-room hotel built for families and practical stays: several pools, a spa with hammams, five restaurants. Comfort and location over character.
On the Amizmiz road, at the foot of the Atlas and fifteen minutes from the medina, the Eden Andalou is a 5-star resort rebranded under Marriott in 2026: a 20,000 m² water park, 253 suites spread across six riads, a large spa and an all-inclusive package. You book it for a family holiday, not for the character of a medina house.
The Hivernage Hotel & Spa is a classic 5-star set in the middle of its quarter, a fifteen-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna. Eighty-five rooms, a pool lined with green walls, a spa with hammam and three restaurants: a comfortable and well-placed base, without the tailored decor of a boutique hotel, but with the facilities and the easy walk to the medina.
In the Agdal tourist zone, ten minutes from the medina, the Kenzi Club Agdal Medina is a family all-inclusive 5-star resort built around its water park. Three pools, slides, a kids' club and a spa: you come here to have everything settled, meals and entertainment included.
The Radisson Blu takes the upper floors of the Carré Eden, the shopping centre on avenue Mohammed V, the axis linking Guéliz to the medina. An international-brand 5-star: one hundred and ninety-eight balcony rooms, a large courtyard pool, a spa, a kids' club. Its location picks up one of the best scores in town. The price is up for debate.
In Hivernage, behind an ochre pink facade and a large palm garden, the Sofitel Palais Impérial is one of the largest 5-star hotels in Marrakech: 328 rooms, several pools, a spa with hammam, and the medina a fifteen-minute walk away. A large hotel machine, not to be confused with the neighbouring Sofitel Lounge.
The Savoy Le Grand plays a different tune than the riads: that of the large hotel, with what that means for pools, restaurants and spa. Four pools including one covered, a two-thousand-square-metre spa, five restaurants, right in Hivernage. For a 5-star, the entry rate stays contained. In return, you accept the scale and the atmosphere of a several-hundred-room hotel.
On the edge of the Palmeraie golf course, twenty minutes from the medina, this adults-only 5-star all-inclusive has changed hands three times: Golf Palace, then Rotana, today Pickalbatros. The setting, golf and palms, stays its real card. The traveller score says not everything is up to par.
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