Swish interiors and a sceney restaurant

With USPs such as Olympic-standard running tracks on the rooftop, a hydrothermal “bath journey” below sea level, and the services of interior designer Kelly Hoppen CBE, Mauritius hasn’t seen anything like this. There is no danger of forgetting where you are, either, as every time the magnetic key slots into your suite, a high-tech reveal reminds you that you have one of the best ocean views on the island. 

Hoppen created chalk-white whipped cream staircases in the villas, made to look like designers’ holiday homes in the tropics, and monastery-like ceilings in the spa. She “rolled everything up and liquidised it” to produce the bold red and white stripes of Beach Rouge, a Miami-style beach club. 

The resort’s signature restaurant Ai Kisu (which means flame in Japanese) was designed to come up to the standards of top restaurants in Tokyo, Milan or Dubai. Pitched “somewhere between Zuma in Knightsbridge and Hakkasan’s Ling Ling”, and decked in sumptuous black and gold, with semi-circular booths under a mirrored ceiling and a firepit reflected in the pool outside, it is top-end Mauritius at its best. 

There was nowhere to get a good laksa, or Beijing duck with caviar, in Mauritius before it opened, and when I went during the first week of opening, it was abuzz with the island’s well-heeled residents, mostly 50-somethings. Its speciality is warayaki straw fire cooking, but the theatre begins with the first course: a plateful of sushi enhanced by the services of a soy sommelier (homemade sauces are infused with yuzu or shitake mushrooms) and someone to grate your wasabi.

A culinary revival

Visitors to Mauritius have traditionally not had much variety when it comes to eating beyond their resorts, but the rise of Grand Baie has led to a flurry of cool new (including Mauritian-owned) openings. At Bloom, with its Cape Town vibe, you can have eggs Benedict and a coffee (made from freshly roasted beans) for breakfast, surrounded by wallpaper depicting coconut palms and flying toucans. I enjoyed an al-fresco candlelit dinner with live music in the garden of Correspondances, among murals and paintings by the owner.