If you’re looking to escape for a long Easter weekend this year, Italy is always a great idea–especially Florence, where the dawn of spring marks an ideal time to visit the city before the summer crowds descend.
This Moroccan Boutique Hotel Is Worth A Trip To Fez
12.02.2024 - 10:33 / forbes.com / Ronald Reagan
“This is a love letter to our father.”
That’s the beautiful—yet almost deceptively humble—origin story of the sumptuous Palais de Fes, an intimate luxury hotel on the medina's edge in Morocco’s oldest and third-largest city. Although the place has been operational in some form, first as a restaurant and then as a hotel of various sorts, for decades, it came into its current gorgeous life in 2020, when Ghita and Nacer Tazi’s father died and the brother and sister returned to Fez to honor his legacy.
In 1980, Azzeddine Tazi opened the first modern-day restaurant in Fez, and his children grew up working there. Nacer remembers greeting guests in a traditional Moroccan getup at age 6 and giving property tours at 9. Hospitality became part of who they are.
Also, he recalls, it was always a very international environment. The siblings grew accustomed to dining with heads of state—photos with Ronald Reagan and Middle Eastern royal families still hang on the walls. “We grew up with the idea that the world is borderless,” he says. “We’re very grateful to have had the childhood that we had.” Also: “Seeing people happy makes us happy.”
They left that childhood for education, work and life abroad. Nacer studied hospitality management at Switzerland’s famed Glion Institute of Higher Education, then completed training programs with brands like Park Hyatt and Ritz-Carlton. Ghita worked in Paris and Madrid. By 2019, the two were living between Miami and Dubai as the founder and COO of Black Edge Concierge, an ultra-high-end travel agency with an unorthodox business model and royal families, CEOs and celebrities among its clientele.
When they returned to Fez and started going through the family home, as it were, they discovered that their rambling property had once been a single estate, parts of which date from the 14th century. Because it had been divided among the original owners’ descendants for centuries, the Tazis had grown up thinking their hotel was made of three palaces; their father had spent some 30 years acquiring them from separate families and piecing them together.
It was a good piecing job, but armed with this new knowledge and their international hospitality instincts, they made Palais de Fes into an even more seamless whole (albeit with a few Escher-like mini-staircases). Even as the city grew around it, it kept its connection to the medina. This means Palais de Fes is easily accessible by car—a rarity in the historic center of Fez—but feels like part of the old-world commerce outside.
Their renovation has been thoughtful, above all preserving the luminous, emerald green tiles on many of the exterior walls. Inside the five suites and private riad are handmade tiles, masterful woodwork and plush velvet
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