- Tier
- Classic
- Style
- Boutique hotel
- Size
- 11 rooms
- Region
- Zanzibar
- Nearest airstrip
- Zanzibar
Eleven rooms in a restored nineteenth-century merchant's house in the middle of Stone Town, with a rooftop tea house that has become one of the better tables on the island.
Emerson Spice occupies an old Stone Town mansion, brought back room by room around an open courtyard, in the thick of the lanes rather than on the edge of them. Its eleven rooms are all different, one of them laid out for a family, and the building's age is left on show rather than smoothed away. The rooftop tea house serves a seafood tasting menu over several courses as the call to prayer goes up across the roofs, and for a good many guests it is the reason they book rather than a bonus once they have.
Flying in
The nearest airstrip is Zanzibar. See the real fly-in routes and how the rest of the region connects on the Getting Around map.
Open the fly-in mapEach Wildtouch safari is quoted individually — rates depend on your dates, the camps you choose and how it all links together. Wildtouch prices the whole journey, not a per-night sticker.
Safaris that visit Zanzibar
Emerson Spice sits in Zanzibar. These are the routes we run through it — each one rebuilt around you, with your choice of camp.
Other places to stay nearby
andBeyond Mnemba Island
A sand island of about a kilometre and a half off Zanzibar's north-eastern tip with nobody on it but guests and the team looking after them — twelve palm-thatched bandas just above the tideline, and reef a few strokes out.
Ultimate luxuryElewana Kilindi Zanzibar
Fifteen white domed pavilions scattered through a large garden above the Kendwa sand on the north-west coast, each with plunge pools of its own and no neighbour in sight.
Ultimate luxuryThe Residence Zanzibar
Sixty-six villas, every one with a pool of its own, spread across a thirty-two-hectare estate on the quiet south-western coast — with the Kizimkazi dolphin boats about twenty minutes down the road.
LuxuryZuri Zanzibar
A design-led garden resort on the Kendwa sand where the sea does not retreat at low tide — fifty-five separate bungalows, suites and villas threaded through planted spice gardens.
LuxuryBaraza Resort & Spa
Thirty villas on the Bwejuu sand, worked in a Swahili idiom of carved plaster, arched openings and antique brass, run all-inclusive — the most ornamental of the east-coast resorts.
LuxuryMatemwe Lodge
Twelve chalets on the north-eastern shore looking straight across at Mnemba — about half an hour by boat to the atoll's reef, which is why divers and snorkellers choose this stretch of coast.
LuxuryChumbe Island Coral Park
Seven off-grid bandas on a small island west of Unguja, inside a coral sanctuary privately managed since 1994 — fourteen guests at a time, and the reef is the entire point.