Seven interconnected riads, 300 works of art, and a rooftop restaurant named after the stars.
Morocco’s creative history isn’t to be scoffed at. This is the country of Yves Saint Laurent, Henri Matisse, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Paul Bowles — artists, writers and designers, largely expatriate, who found something in its beautiful chaos that they couldn’t find anywhere else.
IZZA is a hotel that not only pays tribute to that artistic heritage but actively continues it, embedding Marrakesh’s burgeoning contemporary art culture into its very walls. Quite literally: nearly every surface of the property carries the work of a modern artist, part of a collection exceeding 300 piece, one of the most expansive permanent exhibitions of generative and digital art anywhere in the world.
Art, icons and a suite above the palms
Down a lush, shaded alley in the heart of the medina, the hotel draws you into what is in fact seven interconnected riads, labyrinthine in scale but never disorienting in feel. It is immediately clear that IZZA occupies a different category entirely to the typical riad stay.
The hotel’s fourteen rooms are named after the creative freedom-seekers who defined Marrakesh’s golden bohemian era, a roll call that runs from Pierre Bergé and Talitha Getty to Grace Jones, Cecil Beaton and Marianne Faithfull.
We were placed in the Yves suite, the grandest of the property, perched high above the elegant swimming pool amid the kind of birdsong that makes the medina below feel like a rumour. It was a generous, unhurried space, the kind of room that makes you revise your plans for the day downward, in the best possible way.
Tilework, plaster walls and arabesque detailing, all hand-crafted by local artisans, sit in conversation with contemporary artworks that command your attention at every turn. The bed, dressed in high thread-count Egyptian cotton, delivers on the promise of genuine rest, while organic toiletries sourced from the nearby Ourika Valley complete the sense of considered care
Beyond the suite, the sprawling property’s courtyards, shaded corners and communal spaces — sofas deep enough to disappear into, a serene lap pool sitting next to the cocktail bar – invite aimless, pleasurable wandering that a great hotel should encourage.
Cocktails under the stars at Noujoum
The rooftop restaurant, Noujoum (Arabic for stars), is named after the former Marrakesh home of the legendary American socialite-designer Bill Willis, whose bold aesthetic is a defining thread through IZZA’s identity. There’s reason enough to book a table even if you aren’t staying, set across interlinked riad terraces with panoramic medina views, comfortable low sofas pulled close, and artworks lining every available wall.
We started with cocktails, perfectly made spins on classics such as the negroni and the margarita. Then came the food: Moroccan fried calamari to open, then sun-dried tomato and goat’s cheese that managed to taste simultaneously of the Mediterranean and somewhere entirely its own. A monkfish tagine as a main, deeply local in its spicing yet refined in its execution, and a saffron chocolate mousse to finish on the right note: light, fragrant, and just indulgent enough.
A crisp white from the Meknes region, one of Morocco’s most underrated wine valleys, proved an inspired companion throughout. The cooking, like the hotel itself, needs no assistance from its surroundings, though they help considerably.
Why it matters
IZZA has earned its Michelin Key, and then some. Where many art hotels use creativity as decoration, IZZA wears it as a philosophy, connecting the medina’s storied past with its living present. In a city that has always attracted those who think differently, it is, fittingly, a hotel that does exactly the same.
