The Mellah Hotel Rooftop

In the old Jewish quarter of the Medina, a few minutes from Bahia Palace, The Mellah Hotel occupies a restored address with a rooftop terrace that has become one of the more talked-about cocktail spaces in the southern Medina. The terrace holds a ten-metre pool lined with striped zellige tiling, flanked by hand-cut tilework and tadelakt walls that catch the late-afternoon light in a particular way. Small, considered, and deliberately proportioned. The cocktail program takes Moroccan spice traditions as its primary material. The hibiscus margarita uses local hibiscus for its tart base; the Mellah Negroni is infused with Moroccan spices that reframe a familiar drink in an unfamiliar direction. The approach throughout is specific rather than generic, regional rather than international. The drinks are made to be drunk in this neighbourhood, within these walls, where the flavours of the surrounding souks are never far from the glass. The rooftop draws both hotel guests and visitors who come specifically for the bar. It works best in the hours between late afternoon and the early part of the evening, when the zellige pool catches the last sunlight and the rooftops of the Mellah stretch out in every direction. The boutique scale of the property gives the terrace an intimacy that larger hotel rooftops in the city cannot replicate. Ten suites, one terrace, a bar that knows exactly what it wants to be.