The best five-star hotels in Marrakech
An insider's guide to Marrakech's top five-star hotels, including the best for beautiful architecture, sumptuous spas, Moroccan fine dining, huge villas and pools set in Moorish gardens, in locations near to the souks and the Djemaa el-Fna, and The Palmeraie.
Four Seasons Resort Marrakech
Marrakech, Morocco
8Telegraph expert rating
Probably the most exclusive family resort in Marrakech, the Four Seasons offers luxury amid 40 acres of landscaped Moorish gardens, located on the edge of Hivernage overlooking the royal Menara Gardens. Despite professing to blend seamlessly with Morocco’s architectural heritage, the straight lines and boxy geometry of the resort's 43 properties and serried rows of palms have a formality that feels alien in Marrakech’s otherwise chaotic landscape. The highlight of the resort are the luxurious guestrooms and suites, of which there are 141 dotted around the gardens in large multi-room ‘pavilions’. All of them have private balconies with sun loungers set towards views of the Atlas Mountains. Read expert review From £220 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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La Mamounia
Marrakech, Morocco
8Telegraph expert rating
Immaculate door staff in traditional robes set high standards here. International guests comprise celebrities, politicians and royalty. The large open-plan public areas are scented with cedar wood and cooled by splashing fountains. The outdoor pool is larger and busier than the indoor one which is located next to a basement spa area offering treatments based on local products including argan oil, orange-flower water and honey. Although in a prime spot, close to the Medina, the city’s souk and Djemaa el Fna square, the hotel is located in 17 acres of walled parkland including flowerbeds, lawns, cacti and vegetable gardens, which are magically lit up by night. Opt for a Park room on the higher floors overlooking the pool and gardens. One of the five bars is named after Churchill who regularly wintered here. Read expert review From £302 per night Check availability Rates provided by Mr & Mrs Smith
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Mandarin Oriental, Marrakech
Marrakech, Morocco
9Telegraph expert rating
The Mandarin Oriental’s debut African resort is as subtle and stylish as you’d expect from one of the world’s leading luxury hoteliers. It’s set outside the medina in a gorgeous, two-hectare garden of blooming roses. Unlike the recent trend of ever more ostentation in Marrakech’s five-star hotels, the Mandarin’s luxury doesn’t shout, it whispers. The 54, single-storey villas and central hub nestle unobtrusively in a fully mature garden. Inside there is a similarly strong, but subtle sense of place. Material texture, symmetry and visual drama combine the geometric influences from Berber arts and crafts with an Arabo-Andalusian sense of scale and symmetry. The 19,0003 sq ft spa deserves its own review, with its cathedral-like brickwork interiors, male and female hammams, six spa suites, a jade-coloured pool, yoga studio and fitness centre. Read expert review From £709 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Selman Marrakech
Marrakech, Morocco
9Telegraph expert rating
Known for his work at La Mamounia, architect Jacques Garcia is the author of the Selman’s stylistic brilliance. Within the understated, but intricate, redbrick wrapping the hotel’s interiors are beautiful, a mixture of Second Empire luxury (grand chandeliers, curvaceous chaises longues as well as Imperial purple and old gold upholstery) and intricate Arabian craftsmanship, including ebony-stained tadelakt plasterwork, miniature monochrome zellij tiling and intricate stucco tracery. Stunning vistas draw you on through columned corridors and sun-drenched patios and out to the awesome 75m swimming pool that looks like a glassy catwalk lined by sentry-straight palms. The hotel has the only Henri Chenot ‘Biontology’ spa in Morocco. Read expert review From £249 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Villa des Orangers
Marrakech, Morocco
8Telegraph expert rating
Push through the carved wooden door into the citrus scented garden and you could be forgiven for thinking you had chanced upon a secret royal palace. Water gurgles soothingly off a fountain and olives and palms frame intricately carved plaster archways, which shade inviting porticos. In the centre, reflecting the sky, is a mirror-like pool lined by immaculate white-cushioned loungers. It could hardly be more perfect or discreet. Inside, a clubby, French-colonial style keeps things luxurious but intimate from the wood-pannelled dining room to the ample leather sofas in the cigar cellar. Read expert review From £286 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Amanjena
Marrakech, Morocco
8Telegraph expert rating
Amanjena means ‘peaceful paradise’ and architect Ed Tuttle’s pared-down Arabian fantasy certainly conjures an atmosphere of almost zen-like calm with its grand proportions, pleasing symmetry and luxurious finishes. The pale, peach stone palace with its double-height lounges, library and fountain-focused internal patios reflect Marrakech’s Moorish and Arabian heritage in every graceful keyhole arch, chiselled pillar and ziggurat-style frieze. Expect round-the-clock, smiling service fit for a pasha, or at least demanding Aman clientele. Like Byzantine, temples the 32 rotund Pavilions have up-lit Venetian stuc domes beneath which king-sized beds sit centrally surrounded by acres of space and sleek furnishings finished in rosy cherry wood. Read expert review From £507 per night
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Fairmont Royal Palm Marrakech
Marrakech, Morocco
9Telegraph expert rating
The perfect antidote to the frenetic pace of Marrakech's Medina is this tranquil resort and country club set in a vast expanse of countryside framed by a ring of mauve-coloured mountains. Swim in its lake-like pool or tee-off beneath cornflower blue skies on its 18-hole golf course and vow never to go home. The 124 suites have dreamy Atlas views, private garden terraces or balconies accessed by floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that bring the outdoors in. Even the smallest Deluxe Suites are a whopping 72 square metres and include an elegant living room, a light-filled bedroom, an enormous marbled bathroom and dressing room. Like the public spaces, the décor employs Moroccan crafts in a contemporary scheme that layers interesting textures and artisanal craftsmanship. Read expert review From £217 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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La Sultana Marrakech
Marrakech, Morocco
8Telegraph expert rating
Modelled on the Bahia Palace, La Sultana channels a Moroccan maximalist style. Decorative techniques jostle for attention from zellij-style courtyards and bathrooms to carved cedarwood shutters and ceilings. The painted, gilded, carved, tiled and polished finishes create an opulent and exotic atmosphere, which is only enhanced by the embarrassment of facilities, including a misted solarium, a delicate latticework garden gazebo, a heated pool and a pink-hued spa with bathing pools set amid a colonnaded hammam which conjures visions of Cleopatra at bath time. It is perfectly located inside the Imperial city walls in the ‘golden triangle’ between the royal palaces and the Saadian Tombs. Read expert review From £302 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
