Riad No 37

My stay at Riad No 37 involves a little bit of everything. First: drama. The night before my trip, my three-year-old spent hours cramping with what I later realised was norovirus. Finally sound asleep at 5am, the hour I needed to peel myself out of her bed and to Stansted, I almost didn’t go. 

I had been looking forward to this trip to celebrate a friend’s impending 40th birthday in Marrakech, but the thought of swanning off didn’t feel good. Mr Smith convinced me he could hold down the fort, so I could swan. Lucky he did, because when I called to check in from the airport, overnight’s illness had evaporated and, in its place, banana pancakes and stories.

So when I arrived, I already felt like I was winning. Riad No 37 did nothing to quell my victory and everything to bolster it. Dropped at Bab Doukkala, the main north-western gate of the Medina, which dates back to around 1126AD, with a little help from one of the clutch of lovely Riad No 37 staff, I made it the short distance, past donkeys and motorbikes, to the unassuming heavy wooden door of the riad.

Once inside, the smell of olive wood burning on an open fire was the first thing to greet me — next came one of the hotel’s managers, Jean Peres. The heady scent, and Jean’s tranquil demeanour, had me at hello. 

Things soon went from great to better. For lovers of the colour green (my hand is up!), this hotel is heaven. A bowl of still-green lemons sits on a table next to dark, almost-brown green tiles. Fresh mint tea is served alongside pastries on rustic moss-green Tamegroute ceramics I later find out are the traditional earthy style of the desert. Up on the roof, at the small but perfectly formed pool, cacti stand to attention next to tiles the colour of wet grass. This place is, you get the picture, a feast for the senses. 

The hotel looks like it has been poured in from above; smooth tadelakt — seamless, stone-like Moroccan plaster — glosses the courtyards, which are graced by plunge pools and fruit trees. It is March when I visit, so the open fires, of which there are a few scattered about in the nooks, soften the temperature, but come summer you can well imagine the welcome coolness of these walls.

My room is the largest of the hotel’s eight, at 28 square metres, and the stairs up to it have been scented with orange blossom; this hotel could give Le Labo a run for its money. At one end, a clutch of tropical plants. Windows are framed with wooden latticework — when the riad was renovated in 2019, from near-ruin to its current glory, the owners made a point of working with local craftspeople to bring it back to life.

I rest and read for a while, then dress for dinner. Having left Mr Smith at home holding the baby, and with friends not arriving until the next day, I head down to the main dining table for a solo feast — a grand and banquet-worthy slab of polished marble is set for one, though it could easily host a light aircraft’s worth of guests. 

Candles have been lit, rain is pitter-pattering outside and a culinary kind of romance ensues. First comes a Moroccan tomato salad, flavoured with onion, parsley and black olives. Then the real Casanova — a dish filled with freshly baked bread like fluffy pillows. The tagine is a bubbling volcano of cauliflower, carrots and courgettes, its cloche removed with flourish. For pudding, pastilla jouhara, or fried layers of filo pastry stacked with orange-blossom-accented cream, berries and nuts. 

The early morning flight starting to set in, I retire to my room, happy and replete, to read my book — about life on oil rigs, cold and Atlantic — but here, engulfed in Egyptian-cotton sheets on a bed large enough that I could lie any way and still not overhang it, I feel warm and cosy. 

That feeling continues the next morning, when the marble and concrete bathroom comes to life with steam and the rose scents of the Les Sens de Marrakech products. I’m planning on hitting the souks, so a fortifying breakfast is a must. It does not disappoint. I sit next to an open fire as a coterie of bowls are set down around me, filled with fruit, granola, yoghurt. Then there are jams, buttery msemmen bread, a few individually crafted droplets of butter and a tiny parcel filled with goat's cheese. A plate of piping hot scrambled eggs is the perfect final offering. All is considered and, crucially, delicious. 

An enquiry about the yoghurt — this is nothing like any yoghurt I’ve ever tasted — elicits an invite into the kitchen to meet Layla the cook. It chimes with what Jean has told me about the ethos of the hotel, which brings just enough of the big family house vibe to a luxury hotel. A recipe is offered, although I know it wouldn’t taste nearly so good if ever I tried to make it.

Suitably fortified, I head off into the souk, which is mere moments from the hotel’s front door. The other equally lovely manager, Youssef, has armed me with his number and a map, although part of the fun is folding that up and getting lost. A mid-morning WhatsApp asking for a good mint tea spot is quickly met with a recommendation for the roof terrace of Café de France, from which I look out over the main square, Djemaa el Fna, at the hustle and bustle below — monkeys, snakes, taxis and tourists — and feel a sense of calm.

Several hours of shopping later, stepping back into the riad after haggling for a suitcase’s worth of glassware, ceramics, slippers and spices is — it feels clichéd but true to say — an oasis from the friendly mania of the Medina. All is quiet, except for the frequent absolute glug of mint tea poured expertly from a great height into a tiny cup, birdsong and the regular, beautiful call to prayer.

The rest of my stay is similarly peppered with cultural and culinary treats: the electric blue architecture and vibrant foliage of Jardin Marjorelle, sunset cocktails on the roof of Kabana (the lapsang sour is a must, as are the fries with parmesan and truffle), dinner in the new town at Australian-inflected small-plates restaurant Plus61 (every single dish knocked my socks off), the Pierre Bergé Museum of Berber Arts, tagine at Le Trou au Mur (beef marinated in ras el-hanout, saffron, coriander and honey is our table’s man of the match), a hammam at Wa in the Medina. But my favourite of all is just the wandering, twisting and turning and letting this incredible city wash over me as I go. 

On my final morning in the hotel, I sit on the roof as I contemplate having to leave — a wrench. A cat wanders in over a ledge. The sun is hot but I can see snow on the Atlas Mountains just beyond the city’s edge. Marrakech has treated me well, and so too has Riad No 37. If you are after somewhere that feels truly relaxing, but with warmth (and that smells better than Diptyque) — and the delights of the souk on your doorstep — then look no further.