Izza is Marrakech’s most beautiful new small hotel
A tranquil retreat combines vestiges of Morocco’s bohemian past with meticulous craftsmanship and leading-edge art.
Izza, Marrakech’s most beautiful new small hotel, is tucked away down a labyrinth of lanes in a part of the Red City where few tourists wander, but there are dozens of cats. Like all magical places, it feels as though it has appeared just for me and might disappear with a snap of the fingers. The taxi driver takes me to a small square and I’m ushered through a narrow street to a discreet entrance that opens to a homey reception room lined with large-scale photographic portraits of Moroccan villagers by Leila Alaoui.
The startling images are a glimpse at the lodging’s elaborate design ethos. Not only are the textures and materials of every corner of the hotel exquisite, but the spaces are also filled with more than three hundred pieces of contemporary and vintage Moroccan art, valued at more than £5 million (around $10 million). Among the works is a large collection of digital and generative art from around the world, including non-fungible token releases from Sebastião Salgado and AI artist Refik Anadol.
Informally named “The House of Friends”, Izza consists of seven interlinking riads, or family houses. The 14 rooms and suites are gathered around three courtyards filled with splashing fountains or pools and small trees, with higgledy-piggledy, colourfully tiled staircases leading to a rooftop restaurant and a multitude of intimate terraces with lounge chairs and day beds overlooking the medina rooftops. The buildings, gradually acquired by a private London-based family initially as its own Marrakech bolthole, have been impeccably and imaginatively restored by local architect Amine Kabbaj. Kabbaj tapped an army of traditional artisans, who have elevated the local crafts of tadelakt, zellige and stone carving to something completely wondrous.
Inspired by the work of Bill Willis, the louche American aesthete and designer who moved to North Africa in the 1960s and trailblazed the pan-Arabic style of interior design, the hotel is an homage to the free spirits and bohemians who gathered in Morocco in this era. These include Willis’s friends and clients such as Paul and Talitha Getty, William S Burroughs, Marianne Faithfull, Mick Jagger, and Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent (Willis designed Bergé and Saint Laurent’s famous villa at the Jardin Majorelle). Collections of Willis’s photographs, discovered in an old suitcase, adorn some walls.
The individually decorated rooms are named for each of these cultural icons. Marianne, for instance, is a narrow space (the hotel has kept the original footprint of the rooms) opening onto a veranda over a courtyard. I’m in Yves, a gorgeous large suite overlooking the emerald-hued swimming pool, with shuttered windows that open onto the street, and vintage furniture and artwork themed in shades of pink.
Within the different buildings of Izza are a tea salon with red-velvet banquettes and a cosy fireplace for the cool seasons, a small hammam, an interior café, a library stocked with all manner of interesting books, and the dramatically tiled Bill’s Bar opening onto the high-walled pool area. The shady rooftop restaurant serves a sensational set breakfast of three or four courses, starting with Moroccan pancakes, m’semen, and harcha, and followed by eggs royale with saffron mayonnaise or perhaps lubia (baked beans) with merguez sausages. The menu, designed by British chef Paul Weaver with the kitchen run by head chef Ahmad El Hardoum, has a well-priced à la carte lunch and dinner that might include chicken, monkfish or vegetable tagine or lamb chops with charred leek. There’s a house couscous every day. The torched baby cabbage is addictive.
Izza, named after the original Berber owner, opened just before the devastating earthquake of September last year. It sustained barely a crack, fortunately. The hotel was active in preparing and delivering food to the High Atlas Mountains, where El Hardoum and the hotel manager both had family homes. Imbued with the spirits of artists, musicians and bohemians from the past, and in the care of the most amenable and delightful hosts possible, it really is a house of friends.
The writer was a guest of Izza. Prices range from €160 to €800 per night, including breakfast. izza.com
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