Marrakech, Morocco

Les Cinq Djellabas

Price per night from$251.95

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR231.82), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Afro-gastro lodge

Setting

Palmeraie shade

Created by the owner of gourmande-adored Le Foundouk, Les Cinq Djellabas is a tranquil expanse of olive-tree-shaded gardens in the Marrakech Palmeraie, dotted with 10 secluded, circular lodges – all painstakingly traditional but thoroughly luxurious. And the food is – of course – exceptional.

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Facilities

Photos Les Cinq Djellabas facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Ten, all suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £217.91 (€255), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €4.00 per person per night on check-out.

More details

Rates usually include airport transfers and a Moroccan breakfast of pastries, yoghurts, hot drinks and juices.

Also

Find inner peace with an in-house yoga session, then head to the small spa, where you can indulge in a number of rejuvenating treatments.

At the hotel

Gardens, free WiFi in the main building (not in rooms), TV room, games room, reading room. In rooms: flatscreen TV, satellite radio, DVD/CD player, minibar, air-conditioning.

Our favourite rooms

Go for one of the deluxe suites, which have glorious claw-foot tubs with garden views (ask for the farthest from the main building to enjoy the most secluded stay).

Poolside

Dive in to the swimming pool in the middle of the garden, flanked by parasol-shaded loungers. (It’s heated in winter.)

Packing tips

This is the sort of place where being spectacularly lazy is very, very tempting – bring a book for days lounging by the pool (and your sunscreen, of course).

Also

Les Cinq Djellabas isn’t wheelchair accessible.

Children

This is one for the grown ups; teens are accepted, but the pool and restaurant are firmly adults-only.

Food and Drink

Photos Les Cinq Djellabas food and drink

Top Table

Nab a spot anywhere in the gardens for a particularly magical meal.

Dress Code

Food is the focus: wear something fairly floaty so you can eat your fill (and then some).

Hotel restaurant

Renowned Le Foundouk chef Amine Lamrani and his team dish up modern Moroccan delights in the kitchen – let staff know in advance if you’re planning on dining in. The pistachio crème brûlée is not to be missed, as is the bread made in-house. The traditional pastilla isn’t on many hotel menus in town, but makes an excellent alternative to couscous or tagine.  

Hotel bar

The lounge is open all day, mostly serving your drinks as you lounge by the pool. Try a Morroquito made with local fig liquor, mahia. 

Last orders

Breakfast from 8am; then, the restaurant stays open till the last guest has finished their supper.

Room service

If you prefer to eat in your room, no problem – anything on offer in the restaurant can be delivered to your door.

Location

Photos Les Cinq Djellabas location
Address
Les Cinq Djellabas
Douar al Gribate - BP12517 Ennakhil - 40000 Marrakech Palmeraie
Marrakech
40000
Morocco

You’ll find Les Cinq Djellabas in Marrakech’s Palmeraie, a 15-minute taxi ride from the Medina and souks.

Planes

Touch down at Menara Airport, not far from the city. There are daily flights from many major European cities, and free airport transfers can be arranged with the hotel.

Trains

Regular trains run to other major Moroccan cities, including Tangier, Casablanca and Fez, from the main station in the centre of Marrakech.

Automobiles

There’s free onsite parking, if you dare drive in manic Marrakech. (We’d suggest you leave it to the professionals.)

Worth getting out of bed for

Arrange a day trip with Les Cinq Djellabas’ concierge and be whisked by 4x4 through Berber villages, the Plateau de Kik, the Ourika Valley or Lake Takerkoust (lunch is provided). Or, head into the heart of Marrakech – a private driver can be arranged.

In need of some time in a calming greenspace after haggling in the markets? Pop on over to Jardin Majorelle, a wonderland of greens, blues, and yellows bequeathed to Marakech by Yves Saint Laurent – head in as early as you can to avoid the daily crowds (we particularly recommend ice cream for breakfast in the small café on site). Over the road, 33 Rue Majorelle sells a stylist-curated collection of local art, designer accessories and the like, and is connected to the Kaowa juice bar, where the life-affirmingly refreshing smoothies will keep you cool enough to haggle with the taxi drivers standing by outside.

Go into town for dinner: Le Foundouk is the obvious choice, of course, and you won’t be let down: it regularly tops where-to-eat-in-Marrakech wishlists. Also in the Medina one of our favourites is Gastro MK at Maison MK (book your table in advance: places are very limited for non guests). Le Tobsil (Derb Abdellah Ben Hessein) is a dark, candle-lit hideout tucked away down a maze of pink-walled alleys – it’s regularly hailed as one of the city’s best meals thanks to its table-filling Moroccan feasts, and they dispatch handy guides to find lost guests and then escort them home afterwards. For pre- or post-dinner drinks, you should find yourself in blingily brilliant La Mamounia’s classic Churchill bar at least once. 

Reviews

Photos Les Cinq Djellabas reviews
Sarah Jappy

Anonymous review

By Sarah Jappy, Wordsmith wondergirl

If you’re hoping for a pants-dropping bonkathon involving petal-strewn bed sheets, champagne breakfasts and orgiastic Marrakchi sex-marathons, look away now. Mr Smith and I are sitting in Casablanca Airport’s fast-food basement, eating lukewarm cheeseburgers, drinking lukewarm Fanta, sporadically bickering and glumly wondering whether we’ll ever get home. (Tip: if you want a romantic minibreak, avoid budget airlines, French air-traffic-control strikes and five-day flight delays.) 

So far, this morning has involved: a rain-lashed 5am taxi ride to a cashpoint with an irate non-English-speaking local (it’s a long story), followed by a four-hour train trip whose highlight was a flaccid croissant and whose landscapes were so bleakly stark, we might well have been missioning across Mars.

If this all sounds cosmically diabolical, take heart: things were very different a few days ago, when we were safely ensconced at a cocoa-coloured castle called Les Cinq Djellabas, in the peaceful Palmeraie. There is a hazard to staying at romantic hotels: leaving them.

A few days ago, our prime concerns were: on which sun lounger to prostrate self? (Answer: the closest.) How early is too early for a G&T? (Answer: never.) When is bedtime? (Answer: whenever.) Back then, our sole difficulty was leaving our muslin-curtained four-poster or our airy African eco-lodge: a giant, circular, hollowed-out-nut-like haven, with a claw-foot bath tub, a tadelakt shower and palm-and-banana-tree views.

‘The shower’s amazing,’ I tell Mr Smith on our first morning. ‘Is it like standing in warm rain?’, he asks hopefully. He’s harbouring grand designs of featuring in this review as some kind of Shakespeare-cum-Casanova. ‘The shower is like standing in warm rain’, he declares, 10 minutes later. ‘You’ve already said that.’ ‘I know; I just wanted to make sure you put it in.’

At Les Cinq Djellabas, a day could be called productive if it featured one of the following ‘achievements’: dip foot in pool; unwrap ice lolly; nibble chicken hunks off skewer; nibble other things. It takes some training to get my Mr Smith to this level of unabashed idleness – he’s a hill-climbing, sales-making, beer-brewing Welshman, who drops words such as ‘activities’, ‘exploring’ and ‘outside’ with alarming frequency. Luckily, sunshine+pool+Casablanca beers have a soporific effect; soon he’s horizontal.

The sun does not do much for our conversational skills. One morning, stretched out under a white-hot sun like a molten silver lollipop, our sole exchange involves an elaborate discussion of aubergines. I say elaborate, but actually it went like this: 

Mr Smith: ‘I don’t like aubergines.’ 
Me: ‘I do. They’re like a pervy uncle: slimy, but likeable nonetheless.’

Our interaction with other guests is equally minimal. Every now and then we bump into each other like fat, sun-drunk honeybees colliding as they pollinate the same rosebush. ‘What the hell is that noise?’ grunts a guest next to us, as the call to prayer rises in an evocative ripple against the sounds of pool-splashing, birdsong and distant radio. I feel the same question rise in me each time Mr Smith’s phone pings with an update on the rugby (Italy are playing Wales).

Unfortunately the hotel has WiFi. I say unfortunately, because Mr Smith posts a photo of me looking like an anaemic hippo in a bikini, which prompts a tiresome ‘TAKE IT DOWN!’, ‘NO I WON’T!’ standoff, which is as energetic as we get all weekend.

Surprisingly, Mr Smith’s proactive approach to holidays starts to rub off on me. On day two, we venture out to explore not one, but two different places of cultural import: Palais Badi and Palais Bahia (admittedly located conveniently for the lazy traveller, just a few minutes’ walk from each other). We wander hand-in-hand around orange blossom-scented grounds, admiring ruins, ceilings and rainbow-stained windows, even summoning the energy/nerve to steal a fat orange from one of the fruit trees in the gardens. Crime tastes… unripe, so we swap strange fruit for gin-fizz cocktails at the rooftop bar beside Bahia.

Nudity alert: Mr Smith and I are hammam-bound. We’re keen to have an ‘authentic’ experience, which means stripping naked, donning baggy paper pants and getting violently scrubbed, rubbed and rub-a-dub-dubbed. We’re dunked in hot water, viciously loofah-d, sudsed on a stool, attacked with gritty rhassoul soap and massaged all over – all over – with argan oil. It’s brilliant.

On our way back to the hotel, Mr Smith gravely confides in me that the male attendant ‘DID SOMETHING’ to him in the hammam. He drops his voice and widens his eyes as he says this, leading me to picture loofah mitts being inserted where they shouldn’t, or milk baths of a literal nature. Turns out he had his foot tickled mid-massage. Being well acquainted with Mr Smith’s feet – and the likelihood of them inciting sexual fervour in another human – I will give his allegations the import they deserve, and move swiftly on.

It’s not just our feet. Our taste-buds get a tickling too, firstly at the hotel – sister to the acclaimed Le Foundouk restaurant – where we embark on a sensory overload involving approximately one-million Moroccan dips (including a bonkers-but-brilliant tomato jam) and lamb tagine with toffee-sweet prunes. Sadly, we’re so taken with the potent mahia cocktails that we run out of time for pistachio brûlée (at which point I would have done a little sob, but Mr Smith kisses my ear so nicely).

Late the following night, we take to the ink-dark Jamaa el Fna, lit by a torn-paper moon and flickering gas lanterns. We dodge donkeys and hagglers, pause for spicy chicken tagine at Chez Aicha, then hop from ghaytah-wielding band to band, hypnotised by crooning musicians and their lyrical stories. A troupe of dancing Moroccan ladyboys with wiggling hips, women’s clothing and lusty, kohl-cloaked eyes transfix us; we’d probably still be admiring them if it wasn’t for the amateur henna artist who attacks me with an over-enthusiastic mehndi pen. Mr Smith has to rush me home before I’m henna-d from head to toe. ‘You look like a burn victim’, he comments cheerfully in bed, eyeing up my murky-orange-stained limbs.

Talking of limbs, I accidentally flash a hotel gardener. Full frontal. Twice. Our lodge’s open-plan bathroom has floor-to-ceiling windows facing the hotel’s leafy one-hectare gardens; throughout our time here, I’m far too relaxed to do things like remember to close blinds. Given that we’re in the palm tree-studded Palmeraie, the gardeners are clearly used to bushes – tamed, or otherwise – so I waste no time worrying. I do, however, pause to admire the speed and diplomacy with which the gardener vanishes. By the time I’ve squawked, ducked behind the bath and peered over the tub, there’s nobody there. If that isn’t good service, I don’t know what is.

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Price per night from $251.95