Hear the word Casablanca, and the mind inevitably turns to images of the classic 1942 movie : Humphrey Bogart puffing on cigarettes under the glimmering lamps of the famous Rick’s Café; an impeccably dressed Ingrid Bergman wandering through the city’s bustling souks; a kiss shared in the smoky haze of a Moroccan evening. And even if that vision of Casablanca immortalized in the film is a fiction in every sense—it was, in fact, filmed on the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, although that didn’t stop an enterprising local from opening a replica of Rick's Café in the city back in 2004—it’s difficult to imagine the film hasn’t played some part in Morocco’s decades-long journey to becoming one of the world’s most glamorous tourist destinations.
(For evidence of the latter, just take the endless roll-call of glittering five-star hotels in Marrakech , or the stylish house stays overseen by the expat community of Tangiers that draw in the world’s haute bohemians.) Somewhere along the way, however, Casablanca became known mostly as a waypost while traveling between the country’s better-loved tourist spots, or simply as an overnight stay for businessmen visiting Morocco’s financial capital to cut a deal. The arrival of the Royal Mansour Casablanca , however, is set to change that entirely.
Located in one of the city’s prime addresses—an Art Deco skyscraper and former hotel on the cusp of the Old Medina, first constructed in the 1950s and reemerging after an eight-year-long revamp—the hotel has already landed in the city with a bang. When I visited back in June, the bright, high-ceilinged lobby was bustling with both well-to-do locals (many of whom could barely hide their curiosity while checking out the flashiest new joint in town, pointing up to the 600 fish carved from Bohemian crystal that serve as a rippling light fixture) and the expected international business crowd—but also, somewhat reassuringly, a handful of families and couples clearly visiting Casablanca for pleasure. That the hotel is already attracting tourist tourists can probably be chalked up to its impressive provenance.
The second property from the team behind the Royal Mansour Marrakech—which, since opening in 2010, has dazzled visitors the world over with its no-expenses-spared spirit of palatial luxury—the new hotel is very literally fit for a king. (It’s owned by King Mohammed VI.) At first, the sheer splendor of it can feel a little overwhelming, but once the eye adjusts to all that shimmer and all that marble—sourced from all four corners of Africa, and even further beyond—the subtleties of the hotel’s opulent design scheme shine through.
Just take the moody lobby-level bar which pays homage to the former Bar Diplomate, once part of the historic hotel that previously sat on this site, through the 1950s stylings of its geometrically-patterned marbled floors and the mosaic mural of the hotel’s original facade. (My personal favorite retro detail? The meticulously recreated Art Deco elevator dials.) Up in the guest rooms, meanwhile—which are spread across two dozen floors, and all offer sweeping views across the city—that sense of character only deepens.
Each and every one is like a jewel box, packed to the rafters with the finest examples of contemporary Moroccan craftsmanship; think exquisitely lacquered wooden desks carved into elegant modernist curves, or abstract carpets riffing on the country’s great tradition of elaborately woven rugs, or delicate glassware and ceramics created by local artisans in smoky caramels and golds. (Especially charming are the suites that nod to the city’s cultural history, in which you might find stacks of vintage issues of Cahiers du Cinéma or black and white photographs of the glittering Hollywood stars who visited the city during its heyday.) Still, there’s every luxury you could possibly think of here too, from surprisingly intuitive tablets to control the lights and curtains, to enormous marble tubs to soak in after a long day strolling through the medina.
Speaking of which, before exploring the city, you’ll want to make the most of the opportunity here to take it in from above—and the best place to do so is up on the 23rd floor, where there’s a showstopping vista everywhere you turn. It’s also here that the bulk of the hotel’s culinary offerings reside, accessed from the elevators via a glass-floored walkway that is not for the faint-hearted. (The adrenaline boost may help you work up an appetite, though.
) First, you’ll want to stop by the aptly-named Le Rooftop bar with its sweeping outdoor terrace, which was already humming with a younger crowd of well-heeled locals sipping cocktails by early evening, swelling in numbers as the sun dipped closer to the horizon to cast a dramatic orange glow across the city. But the real star of the show is the La Grande Table Marocaine, which offers heaving, fragrant platters of tajine and shatteringly crisp briouates alongside grilled shellfish sourced from the coast around Oualidia. (Bonus points, too, for the excellent sushi restaurant, helmed by Japanese chef Keiji Matoba, which already looked to be a lunchtime favorite with a local business crowd—and quite rightly, too, given the lip-smackingly fresh quality of the sashimi.
) Finally, given the mind-boggling scale of the spa at the Royal Mansour’s Marrakech outpost, it comes as no surprise that the wellness offering here is a serious business. Yet where most inner-city hotel spas tend to go for subterranean (by which I mean, basement) vibes, at the Royal Mansour Casablanca, there’s plenty of room on the upper floors to devote expansive, airy spaces to the spa—so that, they did. Spread across the building’s fourth and fifth floors, the light, bright rabbit warren of corridors that connect a yoga studio, a beauty salon, a state-of-the-art gym, and even a gorgeous outdoor plunge pool, are all wonders to behold—and that’s before you even step into the treatment rooms.
While I opted for a much-needed deep tissue massage, the real standout is the signature hammam treatment, which is less the kind of scrub-down you’d find in your average Moroccan spa, and more an hour-long symphony of cleansing by way of black soap and Argan oil, best followed by a massage or facial (the spa is the only one in the region to offer cutting-edge Hydrafacials) to lend you a glow that will rival those freshly-polished marbles down in the lobby. Yet for all the unabashed luxury on offer here, what makes the Royal Mansour Casablanca genuinely compelling is its deep connections to the city beyond its four walls. Which only makes sense: while the hotel may be set to make a roaring trade in rooms for high-flying businesspeople, it’s also likely to draw a more intrepid leisure traveler curious to really delve into one of Morocco’s underexplored cities.
On a morning tour of the city, I was shown all of its most dazzling sights: notably, the Hassan II Mosque, which is the second-largest functioning mosque in Africa. But the nearby sprawl of the medina beckoned, and awalk through the latter’s winding streets and alleyways winds back the centuries of multicultural history that created the buzzing city that exists today. Especially fascinating are the monuments that reflect its long periods of peaceful religious coexistence, with the deeply atmospheric hall of the 1920s Ettedgui Synagogue sitting just a few streets along from the intricately carved interiors of the 18th-century Ould el-Hamra Mosque—all explained to me in impressive detail by the guide the Royal Mansour had enlisted.
Yet arguably even more fascinating was a trip with another local guide to explore the street art scene, which provided a rare window into the city’s febrile creative energy today—whether taking a stroll through the leafy Arab League Park and into the adjacent skate park to admire the colorful graffiti adorning every wall, or heading to the French Institue in the city’s well-to-do Palmier neighborhood, where one of the many young women taking up spray paints had been invited to decorate the side of an apartment building. It was the kind of genuine interaction with the people that make up the fabric of the city that often feels all too rare when staying at a five-star city hotel, where you usually feel firmly sequestered from reality. (And once again, given the more inquistive nature of the visitors likely to come here for a vacation, it only makes sense that would be at the heart of the hotel’s offering.
) Returning to the gilded bosom of the Royal Mansour, and up to the 23rd-floor bar, it was clear this wasn’t just a glitzy new spaceship that had crashlanded in the middle of Casablanca—after peeling back the layers of gilding and Bohemian glass, it’s a hotel that is very much in dialogue with the city that surrounds it, too..
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