12 places, from £29 to £94 a night.
Six rooms around a fountain patio, in an Azbeth derb ten minutes on foot from Jemaa el-Fna. The Riad Hizad is a medina house whose asset sits on the roof: a real heated pool, set in a terrace garden, with dinner tables and Berber tent. You come here for that rooftop and for the house you can rent whole, not for the services of a large hotel.
Eight rooms behind a Mellah door, a patio with white columns and a blue-mosaic fountain, and on the roof a terrace that takes the sundown on the medina tiles. The Riad du Rabbin carries the name of a story it tells itself: that of a rabbi's house, in the old Jewish quarter.
Eight rooms around a patio covered by a glass roof, in the Riad Laarous quarter, north of the medina. The Riad Adika & Spa blends Moroccan decor and modern comfort: a cool basin at the middle of the court, traditional hammam, massage room and terrace for candlelit dinners. You come here for the calm of a small-scale house, on foot from Jemaa el-Fna.
A red-and-white checker that runs from the court basin to the hammam vault, nine rooms around two patios, in a derb of the Mellah a ten-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna. What you keep from the Riad Noos Noos, before the decor itself, has to do with the welcome of a whole house.
An 18th-century dwelling behind a medina door, a five-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna, with a pool set on the roof, facing the Koutoubia and the Atlas summits. The Riad Catalina keeps its fountain patio and its orange trees below, and reserves the swim and the view for the terraces. You come here for that roof pool and the position, not for a spa.
The Palais Calipau stands out first for its size: a dozen rooms around an orange-tree patio where a real pool takes the centre, two tables, a spa. A hundred and fifty metres from the Saadian Tombs, it is one of the busiest houses in the south medina, anything but a pocket address.
About a dozen rooms around a patio pool, in a derb of Bab Doukkala, a quarter of an hour on foot from Jemaa el-Fna. The Riad Salman is a medina house over two levels, with a real zellige pool at the middle of the court and a rooftop terrace facing the minaret. You come here for the freshness of the patio and the calm of the quarter.
At two hundred and fifty metres from the Saadian Tombs, the Riad Merzouga is a family Kasbah house: seven rooms in frank colours around a patio basin, a rooftop terrace. Its name says its other calling, because from here depart the tours to the desert dunes.
A long turquoise pool at the back of the patio, between mashrabiya galleries, and a second on the roof: the Alrashid is one of the rare Mellah riads where the pool is not decorative but built to dip into. Eleven rooms, family-run, a quarter of an hour on foot from Jemaa el-Fna.
Three joined medina houses behind a door of the Ksour quarter, a two-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna. The Riad Al Rimal & Spa plays the comfort card more than the period decor: a heated pool in the patio, a hammam and a spa, a terrace facing the Koutoubia with jacuzzi. You come here for the equipment as much as for the location.
A small quiet five-room riad, three hundred metres from the El Badi palace, on the fringe between the Mellah and the Kasbah. The Riad Abjaou has no pool and no magazine decor, but a table travellers rave about, a welcome that carries a first name, and, rare in the medina, walls several describe as really sound-holding.
A small refurbished riad in the middle of the Mellah, a jacuzzi and sun loungers on the roof, a welcome widely praised on over a thousand reviews. Dar Riad Jomana gathers plenty of assets for a low price. Its weak point is the quarter itself, more set back and less busy than in the middle of the medina suggests.
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