Riad Houma

The Riad Houma holds in eight rooms behind a medina door, in a derb of Kaa El Houma, south of the old town. The Riad Zitoune Jdid quarter is residential and calm, off the commercial pressure of the souks, but within reach of everything: a five-minute walk to the Bahia palace and its gardens, about ten to Jemaa el-Fna. You are in the middle of the medina, in a derb where you mostly hear footsteps and mopeds.

The house is old, but it has been taken up in a contemporary vein that cuts through the loaded decors of the quarter: pale lime and tadelakt, walnut wood on the headboards and doors, aged columns and white arches open onto the sky. On the ground floor, a sitting room with yellow benches opens onto the court, where a basin marks the back of the room. The eight rooms are spread around the patio and on the floors, each in a close register - hand-rubbed tadelakt, wood panels, printed cushions, Berber rugs, private bathrooms including some with a freestanding bath. Seen from above, from the arched galleries, the patio says the scale of the house: vertical, white, open to the day.

The terrace, on the top level, unfolds sun loungers, a pavilion and potted palm trees. A basin lets you cool off at hot hours, and the view runs over the medina rooftops. In the morning, breakfast is taken here gladly, and you go back up at sundown. In the evening, the table d’hôtes books ahead, home-made Moroccan cooking with market produce, served in the court by candlelight or on the roof: several travellers make it a highlight of the stay. You can close the day at the hammam, with scrub or massage on site. Travellers give the house 9.4 on Booking, with a 9.7 mention for couples’ stays, which says the address’s profile. For anyone after the same register, the quarter has no shortage of houses run in this spirit: see the other medina riads.

That leaves who it fits. The first caveat has to do with the basin: what Booking calls a pool is a water point on the roof, good to cool off, not to swim lengths. You need to know before booking. Access goes on foot through lanes sometimes crowded with carts and mopeds, there is no private parking, and the house is climbed by stairs, no lift: big cases have to be hauled by hand over several levels. The return by night takes knowing your way in the derb. For a couple or two friends wanting a real medina house, calm inside, a terrace with basin and a careful table from around £77 a night, the address lands right and is well placed. For anyone travelling in a large family, expecting a lap pool or hotel services with a lift, better look at the big garden houses of the Palmeraie. Here, you pay first for a spot in the middle of the old town and a house redrawn with taste.