La Badira

If you’ve done Marrakech, and Essaouira, and Fes and Tunis, then maybe Hammamet — the southerly alternative to bustling Tunis, an expat French Riviera of sorts — is the next destination for you. And maybe La Badira checks all your boxes and more. It’s riad-like, but updated, respectfully nodding to the arch-and-palm aesthetic with a sleeker contemporary infrastructure. The fabulous Mediterranean light is the point, and it works its magic everywhere you look. Out your suite’s floor-to-ceiling window, for example, lending je ne sais quoi to the white-sand beaches and the brilliant seascape. Room interiors mostly defer to that vision with white minimalism, maintaining a faint air of desert minimalism with copious tile and perforated Islamic filigree in the furnishings and wall art. Limpid and sweetly calm, rooms are oriented as they should be: you wake in a king bed looking directly out past a private terrace on the view you came here for.

Sensual as the high-albedo plaster and citrus-perfumed air are, you don’t have to subsist on those alone; a trio of restaurants in smartly appointed spaces make sure of that. Adra’s the headliner, showcasing deliriously vibrant gastronomic acrobatics in the Tunisian idiom, but Kamilah and the beach grill hold their own in the open-kitchen Mediterranean fusion and the outstandingly fresh comfort modes, respectively. A whole host of reasons support the al fresco dining philosophy here: a pair of outdoor infinity pools, the discretely floodlit façade, and commanding views of the bay. We suppose you’ll need to wander indoors at some point to take advantage of Spa Clarins or fireside cocktails in the lobby bar, but the name of this hotel drops a telling hint — it’s Arabic for “full moon.”