Riad Adika & Spa

The Riad Adika & Spa holds in eight rooms behind a medina door, at Sidi Bouamar, in the Riad Laarous quarter. You are north of the old town, near the Sidi Ben Slimane mosque and its minaret, an area long residential where workshops and local grocers outweigh tourist shops. Like all riads, the house turns towards the inside: to the street, it offers only a blind wall and a door, all the light and calm kept for the court. It is the flip side of the address as much as its charm: you have to accept finishing on foot in lanes sometimes crowded, and reckoning a good quarter of an hour on foot to Jemaa el-Fna, the square being about 1.4 km away.

At the middle, a cool basin ringed by low benches, jars and potted palms, under a glass roof that opens in the fine season and lets the sky in. The decor is that of the classic riad: columns, plaster arches, zellige on the floor, worked wood balustrades upstairs, chased-metal lanterns. One point to be clear on: this basin is a cool point, not a pool where you swim lengths. You dip and cool off, nothing more. The eight rooms and suites open onto this court or onto the terrace, all with different decors but in the same spirit, in cream, ochre and saffron tones, with a private bathroom, air conditioning and Wi-Fi included. Family rooms are possible, which makes the address workable in a group. Where the Riad Adika stands out for its price bracket is the wellness side: a real traditional hammam in tadelakt, a steam room and a massage room, treatments booked on site. The rooftop terrace, on the top level, rounds out the picture with its sun loungers, its pergola and its open-air sitting room where you dine by candlelight. For anyone after that steam-and-treatment interlude, the address plays in the right register: see the other medina houses set up for the hammam.

That leaves who it fits. The Moroccan table books ahead and is served in the patio or on the roof, continental breakfast, halal and gluten-free options possible, is taken on the terrace, and the house arranges transfers, desert excursions and rides, all at a supplement. Travellers rate the riad 9.5 on Booking on more than eight hundred reviews, with a mention for the bed comfort and the location in the middle of the medina. The real caveats are those of any house of this calibre: on-foot access through the derbs, no private parking, and a basin that cools without letting you swim. For a couple, a family or a group of friends wanting a real medina house, calm, a hammam and a terrace from around £77 a night, this is a right and well-placed address. For anyone expecting a lap pool, the service of a large hotel or car access to the door, better look at the Palmeraie resorts. Here, you pay first for a human scale, a pocket-sized spa and a quiet spot in the old town.