09/07/2022
There’s a very particular effect exerted by La Mamounia, which seems to take hold the moment you head up the green tiled steps to this most bohemian of grandes dames. Upon seeing La Mamounia’s faded pink walls, Churchill was wont to ditch the suit and pick up his watercolor brushes; Paul McCartney wrote “Mamunia” (meaning “safe haven” in Arabic) during a 1973 stay; and Hitchcock, who filmed The Man Who Knew Too Much here, got his inspiration for The Birds from some overzealous finches on a jardin-facing balcony. La Mamounia was always a curious mash-up of Art Deco, Berber, and opulent Moorish, and the old place has had numerous facelifts over almost 100 years—from Jacques Majorelle’s bright stylings in 1946 to a theatrical noughties revamp by Jacques Garcia (Hotel Costes) and most recently a series of sly additions by Parisian futurists Jouin Manku, including a new cinema and teahouse. There are all the columns, foliage-filled courtyards, and mosaics of the most photogenic medina riad—except that there’s also the smoky Churchill speakeasy, an Asian-focused Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant with its sultry blacks and reds, and that legendary, vast square pool, around which I find the people-watching irresistible (bring dark sunglasses). There’s a reason that the actors and rock stars have kept coming; the fashionistas with kaftans and ci******es. For all that it is woven into Marrakech like the knots in a Berber rug, La Mamounia has never, ever been boring
