El Fenn.
The pink riad.

If there is a single address that defines what a Marrakesh weekend can be, it is the rooftop above El Fenn. A restored riad in the medina, its walls painted the particular shade of pink that the hotel's founders — Vanessa Branson among them — spent a season getting right. The rooftop is everything: kilim cushions, copper lanterns, low tables, the muezzin across the skyline at dusk, a cocktail that tastes of lime and orange blossom and the first night of a trip that has not started yet.

You come up the stairs at six. The light is gold by then. A waiter finds you a low banquette with a view across to the Koutoubia minaret and brings a bowl of olives without asking. The menu is short. The cocktails are properly made — which is not always true in this city, and matters more than you would think. The crowd is a mix of travellers who did the research and locals who know exactly where they are. It is, by design, impossible to be the loudest table here.

Order the "Pink Fenn" because the name is silly and the drink is not. Order the fig and halloumi plate because everyone will pick at it. Order a bottle of Moroccan rosé if there are more than four of you. Plan to stay an hour, then stay two. At some point the sky turns that particular blue that only happens between six thirty and seven, and the lanterns come on one at a time, and nobody at the table will be thinking about a phone.

When to go

Arrive at six for golden hour. Arrive at seven for the transition. Arrive at eight and you have missed the best part — but the terrace is still excellent, just different. On Friday and Saturday nights, book a week out, minimum. Midweek you can often walk in, but do not test this in March or October when the city is full.

The moment

Most weekends have one photograph that everyone agrees later was the photograph — the one that ends up as the group chat thumbnail, the one that makes the trip real. Almost always, in Marrakesh, it is taken on this rooftop between six thirty and seven, with the pink wall behind and the minaret in the distance. If you plan nothing else for the Friday of your weekend, plan this.