Located in the midst of Marrakech’s labyrinthine Medina, intimate boutique hotel Riad Jahan is a chic mish-mash of Moroccan and Indian styles. Carved-wood furniture, Arabian arches and jewel-coloured fabrics reminiscent of a Rajasthani street market abound, while the peaceful vibe is all-pervading.
The riad’s owners have been involved in the hotel project right from the start, and the result is very much their vision. All furnishings and decorative touches, which betray a distinct Rajasthani influence, have been personally commissioned by them. Rooms in this beautiful riad can be booked throuh Mr & Mrs Smith, which is a great resource for boutique hotels all over the world.
Danielle, I discovered your blog and le Souk through this post. You are doing a great job in collecting and publishing all this useful information. I will follow you from now on. Le Souk has great products. Just did a post on all this on our blog. http://blog.villanovo.fr/2009/07/06/le-souk-online-boutique-for-a-unique-living/. Cheers. David
Hey!
OH wow, I haven’t been here for a while now and coming back is lovely. SO So much inspiration in one place
I guess I will stick around for an hour or so 
/Anna Caroline
Design Studio 210
no fair! they have poufs galore.
wow, this is a beautiful pace I went to Marrakesh last year and I staid in a very nice Riad, but this one is so much nicer!
hi danielle,
we stayed here at our last trip to marrakech! rashid and the ladies at riad jahan treated us with utmost graciousness! we enjoyed our stay here.
We love your blog and have decided to give you some awards here:
http://prettypollysprettythings.blogspot.com/2009/07/thank-you.html
Love Polly and Polly
Great blog! Lots of gorgeous interiors & stylish ideas. And thank you for one more interesting link (Mr&Mrs Smith)
We read you in DK:)
Thanks for the kind mention David! This is very much appreciated!
Hi Anna, I am very happy to hear that those stylish Danish people read my blog!
Hi Polly, thanks for the award! I am flattered!
Hi Jen, thanks for letting us know that you have a good experience with this riad. I make sure to save this riad for a future visit to Marrakech!
It is such a shame to have to write this negative review. We are definitely jealous of all of the other reviews which mention a fabulous experience. Unfortunately, out of all the places we stayed during 2.5 months of travel throughout Asia, North Africa and Europe, this rates as the absolute worst, by far!
Let me state from the outset that there were both good and bad aspects to the Riad. Also, that we paid the owners the courtesy of informing them of our experience, giving them the chance to respond and rectify matters before we wrote this review. Our stay was early June, we got an initial response in mid-June offering to investigate. It is now August and we have heard nothing since that initial response.
We chose Riad Jahan as a bit of a splurge, based mostly on the photos we saw and the reviews on this website. It certainly lives up to expectations in terms of appearances. It is a stunningly decorated house. In our experience, however, the beauty is only skin deep.
Our main concern was the poor service. Some days this could be attributed to communication difficulties – of the three staff, only one spoke English and she was rarely around. Other days we just felt the staff were abusing the fact that we were the only guests and they could do what they liked.
For example, we both suffered head colds during our stay and wanted to avoid using the airconditioning. So I trekked downstairs, eventually got the attention of the gentleman (they all seemed to live behind this little curtain and we had the devil’s pwn job convincing them to come out). I tried, in French, to request the use of a fan to circulate the air. He tried and tried, but after a few minutes, it seemed he had not understood and/or could not provide a fan. I was so pleased that someone had tried to help, I did not mind at all that we didn’t achieve our aim. Imagine my frustration, however, when he pulled aside the curtain to enter back into the service area and I saw the manageress sitting there. She (the English speaker) must have sat there the whole time listening to our desperate attempts to understand each other – but didn’t think to come and sort it out using her invaluable English skills. I still can’t believe she did that!
We are not princesses (I have camped my way across the African continent) and do not demand 5 star service. For instance, we don’t mind if the beds are not made and the bins are not emptied. However, when we are the only guests and we go on a day-long excursion, we do hope that certain necessities, such as toilet paper, will be replenished. Having to go downstairs, try and find a staff member and then beg for toilet paper, using hand signals, is not one of my favourite memories.
Poor communication also led to a number of difficulties with our bill. Having paid up fromt for the entire cost of the stay (note to self – do not do that again, it leaves you nowhere to go if you are unhappy) we were quite shocked to see a number of extras on our bill. For instance, mint tea is quoted as being free. Black tea, it seems, is not! One evening, we were just too tired and ill to go out. The gentleman who works there took pity on us and offered us board games and a cup of tea. My travel companion does not even drink tea, but we were so pleased at the small kindness that we both accepted. Only to find, a few days later, that we paid royally for the privilege.
Things got so bad in the end that we paid a fortune to change our flights and escape a few days early to our next destination. As a well-seasoned traveller, that was a first for me.
Even then our escape plans nearly fell apart. Despite booking a taxi a few days earlier, it didn’t arrive. It took 10 minutes of screaming phone calls from the two female staff before anyone bothered to explain to us what was going on. Eventually we were informed that there had been a delay, but that he was on his way. We suspect they forgot to book, judging by the guilty looks on their faces and the alternate screaming and pleading that we heard.
Then the credit card machine wouldn’t work and cash was requested for all the ‘extras’. We were leaving Morocco that day and had used up our Dirhams and did not have time to find a functioning ATM (a thing of rarity in Marrakech) AS WELL AS get to the airport. The manageress then kindly arranged for a written invoice. Even that kindness had a sting in its tail – she had told me there would be a 3% fee for using a credit card. Imagine my surprise to find the form she gave me mentioning only 2%. None of my subsequent enquiries have revealed where that extra 1% goes ….
I’m afraid we were caught out by Riad Jahan. We paid way too much for a bit of tinsel and glitter, with no real service.
We certainly hope anyone staying there in the future has a better time than we did.