Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi
A large all-villa resort close to Malé, notable for 11 restaurants and bars including one by Dave Pynt of Burnt Ends.
- Neighbourhood
- Ithaafushi, South Malé Atoll
- Status
- Open
Photo: Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi Press image
Why we recommend it
Food is the reason to choose this resort over its neighbours. On most Maldivian islands a guest eats in the same two or three restaurants for a week; here there is a different table for almost every night of a long stay, from Chinese and Middle Eastern cooking to a kitchen that draws on the island’s own garden. The Ledge, from the chef behind Burnt Ends in Singapore, and the dining nests of Terra are the ones to book first.
The other advantage is access. The resort is under an hour by yacht from the international airport, with no seaplane and no domestic flight, which makes it practical for a short stay or for the end of a longer journey in Asia. With a children’s park and villas of several bedrooms, it is well suited to families.
Our guide to where to stay in the Maldives, with four island resorts compared by atoll sets it beside quieter and more remote islands, and our report on the opening of Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi gives the background.
Rooms & Suites
All the accommodation is in villas, and each has its own infinity pool, with loungers set in the water, a swinging daybed and a dining gazebo. Beach villas stand directly on the sand and measure more than 230 square metres; the overwater villas are larger, at about 280 square metres. Reef villas and beach villas of two and three bedrooms complete the range. Bathrooms have a freestanding oval bath placed to look over the water, and each villa is given bicycles for getting about the islands.
Ithaafushi – The Private Island is let as a whole. It has two villas, five pools, its own overwater spa and an entertainment centre with a cinema, and comes with a personal concierge.
Dining
The list is long, and the restaurants differ in setting as much as in cooking. The Ledge by Dave Pynt, the resort’s modern Australian barbecue restaurant, serves by the pool during the day and turns to wood-fired meats in the evening. Terra stands at the highest point of the island and seats its guests, two or four at a time, in nests woven from bamboo. Li Long, built over the water behind a moon gate, serves contemporary Chinese food, with Peking duck carved at the table. Glow is a greenhouse-like room in an edible garden, cooking from garden to table.
Yasmeen serves Middle Eastern food, breads, mezze and meats roasted over charcoal, in the open air, in a setting modelled on an Arabian village. Zuma Maldives, the izakaya from London, has a robata grill and a sushi counter. The Rock is a wine cellar set among boulders, where dinners are built around pairings. Tangled is the place for noodles and dim sum at lunch, and Tasting Table is the main restaurant, for breakfast and an international dinner.
For drinks there are Amber, a champagne bar facing the sunset, Peacock Alley, the brand’s lounge, which serves afternoon tea, and Nava, the beach club, which runs along two pools and the beach.
Wellness & Spa
The spa is very large; Forbes Travel Guide describes it as the largest in the Maldives. Treatments are organised along three paths, relaxation, rebalancing or results, with a wellness concierge to draw up a plan, and the treatment pavilions have glass panels in the floor through which to watch the lagoon.
Nava’s two pools, the Mirror pool and the Lagoon pool, are the resort’s shared swimming places. For children there is the Young Discovery Park, with a water play area and activities for all ages up to the teens.
Location
The resort lies in South Malé Atoll in the Maldives, on three islands joined to one another. Guests are taken from Malé’s Velana International Airport by yacht, a journey of 30 to 45 minutes, with no seaplane involved. Elsewhere in Asia the brand is represented by Waldorf Astoria Osaka, its first hotel in Japan.
