La Mamounia is another “1001 Night’s Dream” Marrakech luxury hotel offering lovely gardens, a choice of four restaurants, fabulous breakfasts and Moroccan style rooms, very close to the Medina and Jemaa El Fna square.
For one week Marrakesh, we decided to stay in two hotels so the second hotel was La Mamounia, the luxury five star hotel spa in the heart of Marrakesh. After our stay at Royal Mansour where we had our private Riad, La Mamounia was a complete different experience.
This magical hotel was closed for three years between 2006 and 2009, when Jacques Garcia, known for gems like Paris’s Hôtel Costes, gave La Mamounia a a wonderful modern touch. The 1923 property has been completely restored and modernized, a three-year project that included cleaning and repairing countless mosaics, moldings, and paintings and adding new furniture, fabrics, and woodwork, much of it made by local artisans. Garcia chose a garnet tone as the Marrakesh palace’s signature color.
Many rooms have a overlook to the beautiful garden, with countless palm, cactus, orange tree-studded gardens and a massive pool. The on-site Moroccan and Italian restaurants are solid, but guests rave about the pool-side breakfast buffet, with a great selection of fruit juices, yogurts, egg dishes, and a diet-destroying area of French-style brioche, tarts, croissants, and pastries. The Churchill Bar, named for the hotel’s most famous guest.
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. I loved the weather in September, still warm with bright days and chilly nights. Faultless service is still the rule, whether staff are serving cocktails on your private terrace, organizing a shopping trip in the medina or taking you into the Atlas Mountains for lunch.
La Mamounia has four acclaimed restaurants. Le Français is slightly more formal: marble columns, oversized lampshades and swathes of heavy fabric. L’Italien is moodier, with low lighting and rich ruby, claret and aubergine hues. We had dinner at Le Marocain, where local cuisine is served and enjoyed our dinner to the tune of live Moroccan music. Oh the sweet-tooths will love Le Menzeh, a little hut in the gardens that serves up sugary delicacies such as macaroons and homemade ice-cream cornets – really worth trying!
The Story
It all began in the 12th century with an oasis sheltered beneath the ramparts of Marrakesh. Six centuries later, Prince Al Mamoun, who received the gardens as a wedding gift from his father, gave it his name. The years passed and, in 1923, the hotel La Mamounia opened its doors, offering a subtle blend of Arabic-Andalusian architecture and Art Deco style. For more visit the website here.
Here I am wearing birria dress from Laison. <3
All hotel photos taken by me ©DisiCouture
