An Elevated Haven: Why Olinto is Morocco’s Secret Luxe Mountain Hideaway
Nestled in the High Atlas foothills, the newly opened luxury outpost Olinto is a retreat designed to underscore life’s fundamental pleasures
Twenty-five years ago, an Italian aristocrat named Prince Fabrizio Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa opened La Maison Arabe in the medina of Marrakech. Fabrizio’s refined taste, passion for Moroccan craftsmanship, and an obsessive attention to detail combined to make La Maison Arabe – the first riad hotel in Morocco – one of the country’s landmark properties. From my first night there in 2009, it became my go-to place to stay and eat in Marrakech.
A few months before the Covid pandemic shut down global travel, Fabrizio sold the groundbreaking hotel and decamped to the High Atlas foothills an hour south of Marrakech. After the frenetic energy of Marrakech, he was ready for the quiet, red-soiled beauty of the Ouirgane Valley.
The news shook longtime clients like myself. But then came rumours that Fabrizio was building a rural outpost of deeply private luxury in the valley just outside the Berber village of Marigha. Last spring, as the finishing touches were going into the newly named Olinto, I visited for a sneak peek, and then returned again in September as it was welcoming its first guests.
Marigha sits along the western boundary of the 380-square-kilometre Toubkal National Park, established in 1942 with the Jebel Toubkal (4,167 metre) mountain peak at its core. A solid green of trees marks a protected royal hunting reserve on the opposite ridgeline. The location in the valley, explains the dapper and charming Fabrizio over an aperitif on the rooftop bar, lent itself perfectly to the experience at the core of the hotel, a rural quietness. The stately, centuries-old minaret of the Marigha mosque pokes up through the silvery olive trees that blanketed the area. All round, serrated hills hem in the valley. Snow, Fabrizio said, would whiten their peaks in a few months.
Built on an old olive grove, Olinto’s property measures some 4 hectares (10 acres) but feels even more expansive. A stream divides the property into two parts. On one side, guests find the restaurant, bar, gym, hammam, and salons with stained glass windows, comfy leather chairs, and fireplaces. The wide, emerald-green main pool is somewhat irregular shaped and seems to have been built around the ancient olive trees and oleanders that edge it. An upgraded spa will open this winter, as well as a new library-cum-café common area for guests.
On the other side of the stream sit nine private guest pavilions with exposed brickwork, inlaid ceilings, and plenty of high-quality local metal and leather-worked details. Each has its own garden and terrace enclosed within earthen walls, and a rooftop terrace with daybeds and stunning Atlas views accessed by an external stairwell. Three of the pavilions have a heated infinity pool as well. While spacious, the pavilions can only be booked for two people. That means a maximum of 18 guests at a time, allowing for plenty of peace and privacy.
For dinner, we moved down to the restaurant. Local flavours and highly seasonal cooking dominate the kitchen, with can be called ‘fine farm-to-fork dining.’ All of the produce comes from the hotel’s gardens, the jams at breakfast preserved from fruit in its orchards, and the olive oil pressed from Olinto’s own trees. While the crab ravioli is already becoming a dining room favourite, and the crunchy green bean salad a seasonal must, the beef tagine with dates and almonds remains unsurpassed in its delicate tenderness and deep flavours, and for me is the most unmissable item on the menu.
Walking in the daylight with Fabrizio along the terracotta-colour stone pathways that weave through the property, Olinto’s layout feels like a rural, botanical version of a medina, with plenty of natural nooks and crannies to discover, with an abundance and variety of greenery. That was the goal, Fabrizio says: Olinto needs to be discovered little by little.
While I could happily not leave the grounds for a week, the valley does offer plenty of walking, mountain biking, and horse riding excursions, and a visit to the restored 12th-century Tinmel Mosque, an hour’s drive further up the valley towards the 2,092-metre Tizi n’Test pass, is a sightseeing must. (On the return, stop for couscous at Domaine de La Roseraie in the village of Ouirgane, about 10 km before Marigha, or at least a glass of tea flavoured with herbs picks on the hotel’s grounds which hold some 10,000 rose shrubs.)
Fabrizio has created a place that allows guests to enjoy everything that he himself moved to the valley to find, and to do so fully without forgoing luxury – or those small details that made La Maison Arabe so special. I have a new favourite place in Morocco now, and it’s called Olinto.
Photography: Henry Perks at Unsplash, Images Supplied
Jeff Koehler’s The North African Cookbook will be published globally by Phaidon in May 2023.