Danico received two awards at the first French edition of the Bartenders’ Choice Awards: Best Cocktail Menu 2026 and People’s Choice 2026.
Daroco, the restaurant conceived by Nico de Soto and led by Corentin Gaudin and his team, has thus solidified its place on the Parisian and international scenes.
In luxury hotels, there is an unspoken hierarchy between what is seen and what is experienced. The Spa at the Royal Mansour Marrakech falls into the latter category: spread over 2,500 m², featuring a separate private entrance—accessible after passing through the citrus garden—it functions less as an annex to the hotel and more as a standalone building. The entrance atrium, adorned with white wrought-iron wall panels and a marble fountain dotted with fresh flowers, sets the mood even before the first treatment begins. This spring and summer of 2026, three new treatments will be introduced there.
The Royal Touch, or the Stark Method for Marble
This season’s signature treatment bears the signature of Nadine Stark Chognon, 2023 World Champion in Sports Massage. This title, rarely heard in the vocabulary of hotel spas, conveys a specific meaning: the method behind the Royal Imprint is not a watered-down adaptation of sports massage for luxury hotel guests, but a protocol built on competitive standards.
The Stark Ball Massage® combines three distinct technical approaches: Deep Tissue, which involves deep pressure work on the underlying muscle layers; myofascial release, which targets the connective tissue surrounding the muscles rather than the muscle fibers themselves; and a holistic approach to well-being that integrates these two techniques into a coherent sequence. The treatment is available in sixty- or ninety-minute sessions.
What is myofascial release? Fascia is the layer of connective tissue that surrounds each muscle and muscle group. When under chronic tension—due to prolonged postures, stress, or repetitive strain—it loses its elasticity and restricts mobility, even though the muscle itself may not necessarily be injured. Myofascial release targets this tissue using slow, sustained pressure, which differs from the direct muscular manipulation of traditional massage.
Technology as a Second Step
The Hydrafacial® isn’t making its debut in luxury spas, but its introduction at the Royal Mansour Marrakech comes with a twist that changes its usual business model. The basic protocol consists of three sequential steps—cleansing, exfoliation, and infusion of targeted active ingredients—supplemented by LED therapy. The Platinum version adds lymphatic drainage. The variant, co-developed with Dr. Burgener Switzerland—a Swiss brand specializing in precision cosmetology—extends the treatment to ninety minutes and incorporates concentrated active ingredients formulated by the Geneva-based company.
The partnership between an American technology (Hydrafacial® was developed by the American company BeautyHealth) and a Swiss cosmetics firm is, in and of itself, a geographical choice consistent with the spa’s identity: Marrakech as a place of convergence, not of parochialism.
Pilates Barre: Rigor as a Form of Wellness
The third new offering of the season, Pilates Barre, is perhaps the most interesting from a stylistic perspective. Introducing a discipline that draws as much from classical ballet barre work as it does from Reformer Pilates into a luxury Moroccan spa is a statement that movement—precise, controlled, and demanding—belongs in the same realm as skincare. The activation of deep muscles and the postural alignment produced by the method mechanically complement a massage protocol: the body, prepared by the Deep Tissue treatment, regains, through the barre, an awareness of its own structure.
The spa also works in partnership with eight cosmetics brands: marocMaroc, Sisley, Subtle Energies, Intraceuticals, Dr. Burgener Switzerland, Leonor Greyl, and Pedi:Mani:Cure Studio by Bastien Gonzalez.
The question this season quietly raises is not one of care or movement taken separately, but of how they interrelate within a single architectural space. The idea that the body can be treated as a structure—whose structural tensions are relieved, whose surfaces are refined, and whose lines of support are reactivated—is a hypothesis that the Royal Mansour Marrakech seems to have accepted as a working premise. Future seasons will reveal whether this convergence endures over time or whether it is merely the logic of a single spring.
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