LB
Leila Bensaid
Head Tellak · 11 years
Trained in Fez and Istanbul. Sets the standard for every gommage that leaves this house.
Eleven years, one quarry, and a stubborn refusal to speed up the gommage.
Our Story
The founders spent a winter in Fez learning what a hammam actually is — not a spa treatment with steam added, but a sequence a whole neighbourhood moves through together. They came back with a kessa mitt, a supplier of rhassoul clay, and a conviction that the city needed the real thing.
Onyx & Ember opened in a converted courtyard house in 2014. The marble came from one quarry so the veining would match across every slab. The heating runs under the floor, the way it should. Nothing about it is quick, and that is the entire point.
What We Hold To
Your ritual has a start time and no end time. Nobody will come and tell you the room is needed. Stay until the tea is finished, and then stay a bit longer.
Capacity is set by how many people can use the circuit without queuing. When the day is full, it is full — we would rather turn a booking away than crowd the slab.
There is no machine version of a kessa scrub. Our tellak apprentice for two years before they work on a guest, and they set the pressure by what your skin tells them.
No screens past the changing room — not in the steam, not in the cooling room. It is the single thing guests thank us for most, usually on the way out.
The People
Small team, long tenure. You will likely see the same faces on your second visit.
Head Tellak · 11 years
Trained in Fez and Istanbul. Sets the standard for every gommage that leaves this house.
Deep Tissue · 8 years
Sports-therapy background. Ask him about shoulders and you will not need a second appointment.
House Host · 6 years
Runs the floor, the tea and the timing. If the house feels calm, that is Yara's doing.
Come and See
Take the circuit, sit in the cooling room, and decide about the rituals afterwards. Weekday mornings are the quietest hours in the house.