In the dusty red foothills of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, it’s time for tea. Here, it’s known as “Atay bi Nanaa”: a local ritual, and just one of the many tenets of the Berber community’s hospitality. We’ve journeyed just 45 minutes from Marrakech airport, followed winding roads through cacophonous markets and rocky gorges, and slalomed past troupes of donkeys led by men in tall Berber hats and airy djellabas. Our fortified home sits stoic above a sweeping valley and the small town of Asni—Kasbah Tamadot, a luxury retreat with a name meaning “soft breeze” in Amazigh.
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We have our tea in Kasbah’s high-walled courtyard on plush embroidered Berber cushions, shaded by languid leafy trees, with Mohammad Ait Belhaj. Mohammad, in his 70s, previously worked as the resort’s restaurant manager for a decade. After his retirement, he returned as master tea maker—and a beloved Kasbah character who charms guests. “I am a tea man, I am a people man,” he tells me over freshly picked and brewed Moroccan tea; mint, rosemary, geranium, sage. “I get to meet people from all over the world and share in our customs. It is a joy to welcome people to Morocco.” As we relax and chat, another popular resident walks pensively by: one of Kasbah’s six peacocks.
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Taking the same path as the jewel-feathered bird through the fountained cacti gardens and keyhole archways opens up the Kasbah Tamadot estate. First built by a local governor in 1920, Sir Richard Branson first came across Kasbah during his world ballooning expedition in 1998. He and his mother, the late Eve Branson, were enchanted. Branson bought the property from Venetian antiques dealer, gallerist, and interior designer Luciano Tempo in 2000. (Several pieces from his impressive art collection from across North Africa and Europe remain on Kasbah’s walls.) Following renovations, Kasbah Tamadot opened in 2005 as a luxury hotel in Branson’s Virgin Limited Edition Collections—which also includes a safari lodge in East Africa and a Swiss chalet. Today, there are 42 rooms, including grand riads, charming Berber tents, and suites with hot tubs, terraces, and private pools all furnished with sumptuous Moroccan crafts.
But the devastating Al Haouz earthquake in September 2023—with a magnitude of 6.8—caused extensive damage to the hotel. It was a full house, but thankfully, no one was injured. Hotel staff—and Branson himself—were heavily involved in local relief efforts, and began a year-long restoration project that brought the retreat back bigger and better than before. “It was the most complicated night of my life,” general manager David Redouane Assabbab recalls, sitting in Kasbah’s low-lit library. “Richard was on the ground with us. He came on his private jet loaded with tents, clothes, sleeping bags and distributed them in the village.” Through the year-long closure, all staff—100% from the local community, with generations of families—remained employed. The property has also nearly doubled in capacity to include six new riads, a kids’ club, and a new restaurant. Now, international direct flights from the U.S. to Marrakech have made this enclave even more accessible, and peak season has extended further into the winter when the temperatures are still mild.
Kasbah Tamadot feels palatial, but homely and authentic. For three nights, I’m resident in one of the three-bedroom riads with a well-stocked complimentary mini-bar and my own pool that surveys the hotel’s vegetable patch and the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The cool, quiet spring air is punctuated only by Kasbah’s small pack of mules braying nearby, and the tinkling of the riad’s fountain. Mornings are slow, burnt orange sunrises taken in from the terrace eating fruit-studded biscuits and wearing my babouches, traditional leather slippers that I’m encouraged to take home.
Breakfast in the gilded Kanoun restaurant is a mix of traditional Berber and Moroccan dishes as well as some European staples—a breakfast tagine, Kasbah Benedict—but I return most often for the freshly made Baghrir, a spongy semolina pancake that I smother in local honey and dates. Dinner at the new Asayss restaurant includes peppery chicken briouate pastries, M’hamsa—a risotto-like dish—with prawns and asparagus, poached Asni pears with chocolate and argan oil, and milk pastilla infused with orange blossom water. One lunchtime, I took a cooking class with Kasbah’s chef, and in a haze of colorful spices made a traditional tagine that I scooped up hungrily with thick shreds of freshly baked Berber bread. Tea and conversation with Mohammad aids digestion.
Experiencing local traditions and knowing the community stories is interwoven with a stay at Kasbah. The same year Branson purchased Kasbah, his late mother Eve established the Eve Branson Foundation, which is dedicated to improving the lives of local people. There are three craft centers for local women where they train in and practice artisan skills including weaving, woodworking, and embroidery. I visited one, where women work the looms, and I purchased a fringed chocolate brown rug with a lozenge symbol, which represents womanhood and feminine strength.
The following day, I hiked with a local guide and visited a small town nearby. The devastation of the earthquake is still shocking, but even showing up unannounced, a local family warmly welcomes us into their home for tea, fat discs of warm bread, apricots, and soft j’ben cheese. It was an affecting experience, even if we were only able to communicate through broken French and English.
Meanwhile, Kasbah’s spa takes its name from the Berber word for relaxation, “Asounfou.” I had a traditional Hammam experience, a cherished, centuries-old tradition with purifying black beldi soap and argan oil to cleanse the skin and hair, a full body exfoliation, and a cooling quartz crystal massage. I emerged feeling more or less reborn, and so that a magenta sunset over the mountains, donkeys yodelling nearby, made me a bit teary.
Berber hospitality is defined by the concept of “baraka,” or a “spiritual power”—it’s a sense of generosity and giving that goes beyond the mint tea, breaking steaming globes of bread, and opening their homes to a ragtag crew of hikers. And despite its luxurious trappings, it’s a philosophy that can be felt in every corner of Kasbah Tamadot. Here, everything flows free and willing—like, well, a soft breeze.
