RIAD CLEMENTINE

I stayed at Riad Clementine for three nights together with my husband and two year old daughter. The staff at the Riad is extremely helpful and they all made us feel very welcome. The Riad is beautifully decorated, and both the courtyard and the terraces where great places for relaxation. Also, the pool is - unlike many other riads - placed in a sunny spot. We stayed in room no 6 and had plenty of space, also for our daughter's cot. The Riad is very clean. Simple, but good, breakfast with homemade pancakes. From the Riad there is a 10 min walk to the souks and approximately a 25 min walk to the Jemaa El-Fna. We booked our transportation to the airport through the Riad, and we were picked up by new, large car. All in all - highly recommendable.

There are not enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe Riad Clementine adequately. My wife and I stayed for ten days recently in Marrakech, half of the time in a riad in the Kasbah, on the south side of the Medina, and half at Riad Clementine, on the north side, near the souks and Ville Nouvelle. The first riad was a wonderful place, which I would not hesitate to recommend, but Riad Clementine was so much nicer in so many ways. It is an authentic riad, with a quiet and inviting courtyard in the center with a fountain and citrus trees. The courtyard also has canopies to provide shade and was a delightful and relaxing place to be at any time of day. There were also cool, peaceful rooms at the perimeter of the courtyard where, more than once, my wife and I sat and shared a bottle of wine after dinner. The owners, Angela and Antoine, were on the premises every day and were thoroughly engaging and tremendously helpful — with directions, maps, suggestions for restaurants, instructions for negotiating with taxi drivers, and all sorts of useful advice. Although Riad Clementine operates its own restaurant, it was happy to make reservations elsewhere. There is a small rooftop pool and ample space and lounge chairs for sunning. Our room was spacious, airy, and bright, with ample AC (which we could easily adjust) and had a very pleasant sitting area, a fireplace (which I assume could be used during colder months), a large bathroom, and very large tub. The bed was a genuine king and extremely comfortable. The location was perfect. It is in the Medina, but only a few dozen yards from a main street (Rue El Gza) that heads directly east through the Medina to the Ben Youssef Mosque, Ben Youssef Medersa, and the souks, which are all only about a ten-minute walk away. There are no complicated turns and no chance of getting lost on the way. (This is a MAJOR advantage over many other riads in the Medina. Some riads are enmeshed in the maze of tiny, crooked streets and their location can make the simplest, shortest walk a chore.) In the opposite direction, to the west, Riad Clementine is at most a hundred yards away from the western edge of the Medina and the principal taxi stand that is located there, outside the Medina wall, at Bab Moussoufa. Taxis, by the way, are ridiculously cheap and, in our experience, safe and clean. At most it should cost 10-20 MAD to go anywhere in and around the Medina or Ville Nouvelle, with a little upcharge at night. Briefly, starting from Riad Clementine, you can get anywhere you want to go quickly and with no hassles or inconvenience. The neighborhood to the north of Riad Clementine, by the way, is mostly residential and my wife and I found it a pleasant place to walk in the mornings. A real highlight is Riad Clementine’s restaurant. The meals we had at the Riad (and we had occasion to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner there) were all wonderfully prepared and absolutely delicious. Everything was significantly better than any of the moderately-priced restaurants we tried. (Be aware that some of the moderately-priced restaurants serve pretty mediocre, bland fare.) Unless you dine at one of the nicer restaurants in the city, you’re not going to have a meal anywhere near as good as what you’ll get at Riad Clementine. At dinner, there is a three-course, set menu that changes each day. The staff buys fresh ingredients every day. To make sure that it has enough for the evening meal, all we had to do was to let them know by the middle of the afternoon if we wanted to eat there that evening. They have a small wine list, but all reasonably priced and the two we had were excellent (one, a Moroccan brand “Eclipse,” is a blend of sangiovese and syrah and was especially good). The breakfast, by the way, is lovely. It consisted each day of freshly squeezed orange juice, yogurt, fruit cocktail, coffee or tea, crepes, a selection of jams, fruit butter, and honey, and a small plate of ham, hard cheese, BonBel, dates, and a sweet cake of some sort, plus Moroccan bread. Eggs and omelets, among many other items, are available for lunch. If / when we return to Marrakech, we would, without hesitation, return to Riad Clementine.

A beautiful riad set in the midst of the medina. Perfect for the modern city to the north of the medina - easy to pick up taxis just outside the gate. Calm and cool. Reasonably handy for the stroll through the medina to Jemaa el f'na. I found a handful of arabic phrases enough to deflect almost all of the pestering, which was mild. Lovely Cosmopolitan city.

AS you walk inside the medina the last thing you expect to find is a beautiful boutique hotel. This is what happened when we opened the door to the Road Clementine. Our drive organized with the Riad and someone from the Riad was waiting for us when we were dropped off. We were 3 rooms total. Saw all three rooms and each had its unique features. All were beautiful and large enough to be comfortable. The bathroom was big for what I was expecting inside the medina in marrakech. The air conditioning worked great and you control it from the room ( individual AC). There was a bug the first day in the bathroom but the staff came in and removed it quickly. Breakfast was simple but good. The smells were something I loved - the second you walk in it smells like a spa - a mix of moroccan spices if I had to guess.

A mini paradise a stone's throw away from the hustle and bustle of the Souks, with beautiful rooms and a lovely small pool. Staff very friendly and went out of their way to accommodate us and the needs of our 4 month old baby. A perfect example of an original Riad. Looking forward to a return trip!