Our small crew stayed in the Saadia riad, where rooms overlooked a courtyard lined with Moroccan zellige (tilework) and intricately carved arched balconies. The interiors were a labor of love by the family of Caid Azzi Boujemaa, a former palace worker who was gifted the Riad in the early 20th century as a thank you for his loyalty. In the early 2000s the property was restored by the La Sultana hotel group, in partnership with the Department of Historic Monuments, who employed expert master craftsmen to bring the riads back to their former elegance using centuries-old methods.
Dinner took place under the stars at the property’s fine-dining restaurant La Table de La Sultana, where dishes of charred avocado and fresh spider crab flesh and Dakhla lobster ravioli, fresh from the shores of sister hotel in Oualidia, were served in the open-air courtyard. (The hotel’s restaurants serve only locally-sourced produce, often grown from its own vegetable garden.) After dinner, we drank whisky-infused Churchill cocktails at The Odette rooftop bar, the largest in the medina, with panoramic views of the Atlas Mountains.
Surf and seafood in Oualidia
We drove two and a half hours through the night, past remote towns and wide open fields, to reach Oualidia, a small fishing village on Morocco’s Atlantic Coast where King Mohammed V kept his royal residence in the 1940s. La Sultana Oualidia, sister property to the one in Marrakech, is a fortress palace rising from the dunes on the shores of a serene saltwater lagoon. What the city does for relentless energy, the beach matches in quiet isolation—the only sound is the distant waves crashing into the sand in the distance. The intimate 12-room retreat, home to three restaurants and a spa, is designed to help you decompress from urban Morocco: each guest is given a smartphone upon arrival that can be used to contact their personal butler to light fires in their rooms, fill the cavernous private jacuzzis, or pour a cold glass of gin and tonic.
After a sunrise breakfast of eggs and msemmen (flatbread) at Jan Janz, a cozy restaurant and bar, we took to the seas with models Chiara Scelsi and Alberto Perazzolo, sailing past pink flamingos to a private beach for a lunch of spider crabs and langoustines cooked over flame pits in the sand. Oualidia is also Morocco’s “oyster capital,” so do as we did and indulge in bivalves farmed in the lagoon with a glass of Moroccan rosé. If inclined, structure your days around the pace of the village’s surf scene—the waves are so good they are said to still be favored by the present-day royal family.
How we styled it
Models Scelsi and Perazzolo are recognizable for their work with Dolce and Gabbana. (Scelsi is also known for being Karl Lagerfeld’s muse in the year of the iconic Chanel airport show.) We styled them in looks suited to our Moroccan home: bright colors that shone in the orange sunset, crisp whites that stood out against the sandy tones of the traditional tadelakt walls, and oversized gold jewelry that made even the simplest bikinis and cashmere jumpers instantly glam. When the sun had set and the cameras were off for the day, we drank Moroccan tea on La Sultana Oualidia pier, the O bar, feeling reenergized for the season ahead.