Luxury hotels in Marrakech

The Oberoi Marrakech plays in the palace class: Andalusian-inspired architecture, zellige columns, long reflecting pools running to the Atlas, sprawling gardens. Eighty-four rooms and villas, some with private pool, a large spa, service tuned to the letter. It is one of the highest-rated addresses in Marrakech, at a price and a distance from the centre to match the ambition.

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.

Clinging to an Atlas spur above Asni, an hour's drive from Marrakech, the Kasbah Tamadot is Sir Richard Branson's Moroccan house, bought after a hot-air balloon flight and opened to the public in 2005. Twenty-eight rooms and suites, four Berber tents on the hillside, two heated pools, a spa: you come for the mountain, not for the medina.

The Amanjena is a landmark: the first Aman resort opened in Africa, in 2000, a set of pavilions and pisé houses laid out around a great pool drawn from the Menara basin. On the outskirts of town, along the Amelkis golf course, it holds the very top of the range: spa, heated pool and service to match. A budget outside the norm, no equal in town.

Commissioned by King Mohammed VI and opened in 2010, the Royal Mansour does not rent rooms but 53 private riads, linked by a maze of lanes inside the medina, a few steps from the Koutoubia. A medina within the medina, where staff move through underground galleries and never cross paths with guests. It is the most expensive address in Marrakech, and one of the most discreet.

In the Palmeraie, the Ksar Char-Bagh is a small palace built like a ksar, drawn from the Alhambra: paved courts, fountains, olive and fig trees across several enclosed hectares. Only around fifteen suites, three pools and an underground red-marble spa. You come for the calm and the space, far from the bustle of the medina.

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.

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.

The Park Hyatt is the contemporary take on the Marrakech luxury resort: a broad complex at the edge of the Al Maaden golf course, south of the city, cut through with water gardens and reflecting pools. Rooms and villas in a wood-and-earth design, one of the largest spas in town, several pools, a real kids' club. A branded 5-star, comfortable and family-friendly, off the medina.

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 on 20 hectares of olive trees along the Royal Golf Road, the Mandarin Oriental fields almost only villas with a private pool, each behind its own wall. You come for space and remove, ten minutes by car from the medina, not to sleep in the middle of the city.

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.

A white palace with tile roofs, a water canal running to the steps, curtained cabanas at the pool edge: at km 10 of the Ourika road, the Palais Anthea holds eleven suites on a hectare of gardens. It is one of the best-rated addresses of this road. It is not a historic house.

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.

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.

The Es Saadi Palace is the flagship of an Hivernage institution: an eight-hectare park where suites, villas and ksars sit around the largest pool in the neighbourhood. There is a Dior spa, three restaurants, a casino and the Théâtro, one of the best-known clubs in town. An old-school resort-palace, a stone's throw from the medina without its clamour.

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.

In the Palmeraie, twenty-five minutes from the medina, the Palais Namaskar strings out 41 rooms, suites and villas along reflecting pools and water gardens, under a golden dome. You come for space, quiet and a top spa - not to head out into town at any hour.

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.