26 places, from £77 to £1105 a night.
About twenty kilometres from Marrakech, on the Ourika plain facing the Atlas, Les Asnouss is a nine-room ecolodge built in pisé. Earthen walls, solar power, well water, kitchen garden and a small farm of donkeys and peacocks: you come here for the country and the silence, not for the medina, which needs a car.
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.
About fifteen kilometres from Marrakech, on the Fès road, Bakkal Farm is an organic farm you inhabit rather than a hotel. Seven waxed-concrete rooms with large picture windows onto the olive grove, a long mirror pool, a table drawn from the kitchen garden: you come here for the country and the calm, not for the medina, left a half-hour drive away.
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 Fashion Boutique Hotel wears three stars on its plaque, but lines up a level above: a rooftop pool-bar with an Atlas view, a spa with hammam, a restaurant, all on avenue Hassan II. Thirty-five rooms in contemporary decor, a service travellers place at the top, five minutes from the station.
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.
The 2Ciels plays the pleasure boutique on several levels: a pool in the patio, another on the roof with a bar-lounge that livens up in the evening, a spa, two tables including a seafood one. Eighty-five rooms in Art Deco decor, on the edge of Guéliz and Hivernage, facing the tennis club and near the galleries. An address to stay in as much as to head out from.
In the Palmeraie, fifteen minutes from the medina, Les Cinq Djellabas lines up ten lodges under conical thatched roofs among an olive grove. A human-scale guesthouse, designed by its owners around a heated pool and a Moroccan table. You come here for the calm and the orchard, not for the souks 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.
In the Palmeraie, Dar Sabra is less a hotel than an open-air art gallery you sleep in. Two hectares of olive trees planted with sculptures and pop frescoes, around twenty all-different rooms, three pools: you come here for the decor as much as for the rest, ten minutes from the medina but off its buzz.
Carved stucco, zellige columns, chiselled wood ceilings: The Red House pushes the decor of the great early 20th-century Moroccan houses into an eight-room home. A garden with a pool, a house table, right in Hivernage. A dense and intimate decor at once, for anyone who likes owned excess rather than bare elegance.
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.
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.
The Ari Boutique Hôtel made calm a rule: the house is adults-only. Thirty-one contemporary rooms in Guéliz, a pool sheltered between two facades, a breakfast travellers cite often, five minutes on foot from the station and walking distance from the Majorelle garden and the Yves Saint Laurent museum. A quiet urban address, no children, for a settled stay.
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.
An hour from Marrakech, hanging above the Azzaden valley, Kasbah Africa is an ecolodge turned to the mountain and the sky. Eight suites facing the summits, telescopes in the rooms, glass domes for sleeping under the stars: you come here for the High Atlas silence and the dark night, not to range out on the medina.
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