16 places, from £29 to £148 a night.
The Riad El Hara holds in six rooms, a cream tadelakt patio and a welcome - Karima and the owner - that travellers cite ahead of the rest. You are at Bab Doukkala, off the bustle, with a heated pool and a hammam on the roof. A small house that receives you like at home, and it comes through in every comment.
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.
The Palais Tara & Spa is one of the rare medina riads classified 5-star, and it shows from the entrance: painted cedar ceilings, stained-glass sitting rooms, marble and zellige. A heated pool on the roof, an indoor pool, a real spa with hammam and sauna, a five-minute walk from Le Jardin Secret.
Five rooms, bare tadelakt, potted cacti and olive trees on the roof: the Riad Solange is a small Kasbah house turned to wellness more than to the postcard. Yoga several times a week, sound baths, home-made table, and a hostess who receives as she would like to be received. No pool, but a bubble to settle in.
At under forty pounds a night, the Riad Miss Caracal puts everything on its roof: daybeds, cacti, straw parasols and a hot tub facing the Kasbah rooftops. Five plain rooms below, two hosts travellers adore, and one of the best welcomes of the quarter.
Reopened in early 2025 after refurbishment, the Riad Farasha is a small four-room riad, fresh and quiet, a six-minute walk from the Saadian Tombs. A dipping basin at the back of the patio, a terrace overlooking the Kasbah rooftops, and a name that means butterfly.
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.
Macassar ebony columns, tubular 1930s armchairs, shagreen and parchment: the Villa Makassar is not another Moroccan riad, it is an Art Deco palace, the only one of its kind in the medina. Ten rooms, each dedicated to an artist of the period, in the Kasbah, a ten-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna.
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.
The Riad Dihya is a small no-frills house of the Dabachi quarter, an eight-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna: seven rooms around a zellige-medallion patio, a dipping basin on the roof and a careful breakfast. Good value for money, not a luxury address despite the label.
A small pool with jacuzzi at the back of a banana-planted patio, six rooms, and a French couple who host and dine with their guests: the Riad Dar Alif is an intimate Mellah house, a ten-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna, where you are at someone's home rather than in a hotel.
The Riad Louhou has chosen white where the Kasbah plays zellige: pristine patio, mashrabiya, driftwood, linen and rattan. Five suites only, a hammam, a basin on the roof and a real table, a ten-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fna.
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.
The Riad Douirtna plays against the grain of geography: it is a full riad, patio and terrace included, but planted in Gueliz, the new town, not in the medina. Eight rooms only, a hammam, a Moroccan table, a welcome travellers rate very high, a quarter of an hour on foot from the Jardin Majorelle. The spirit of a guesthouse, without the old-town lanes.
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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