A PRIVATE AFFAIR
Do anything, anytime, anywhere at the Maldives’s latest all-inclusive, private resort. By Lee Tulloch.
Do anything, anytime, anywhere at the Maldives’s latest all-inclusive, private resort.
The Maldives is not the easiest destination. It’s a long haul to get to the Indian Ocean nation of almost 1,200 islands, often involving multiple flights and speedboats. And, given the number of high-end resorts that are opening with regularity, each more beautiful than the other, choosing one over another can be an anxiety-making dilemma.
That’s the tough part. Once you’ve arrived, it’s bliss.
Kudadoo Private Island, which opened last December, is the Maldives’ first allinclusive, sustainable luxury resort, making the choice of island a little simpler for guests looking for the highest level of luxury delivered in an effortless way – the ‘barefoot luxury’ many resorts promise but don’t always achieve. Kudadoo, with tariffs starting at US$3,800 per night, offers plenty of celebrity-friendly touches, such as staff accommodation for the entourage and private jet transfers, but it’s deliciously unpretentious, environmentally responsible and very, very chic.
It’s a 40-minute plane ride from Malé International Airport to the Lhaviyani Atoll, formed by a ring of natural islands that enclose the lagoon inside them. There are only five resorts in this atoll, as opposed to the busy Baa Atoll, which has 17, and this means that there’s a lot less traffic on the water and less noise from seaplanes overhead than in the more populous atolls. A dedicated lounge at Malé airport for guests in transit to Kudadoo and its sister island Hurawalhi makes the travel fairly seamless.
Kudadoo means ‘small island’ in Dhivehi, and you could walk around its cornflour-soft shores in about 20 minutes. Owner Lars Petre, who was a tour operator in Sweden, discovered the Maldives after a trip to Sri Lanka more than 30 years ago. He started the first charter flights to the islands from Scandinavia at a time when the capital Malé only had sand roads. Kudadoo was a deserted island where he set up an overnight camp for guests who wanted a real-life Robinson Crusoe experience. Now, Petre owns nine resorts in the Maldives, and if you’re shipwrecked on Kudadoo you’ll have a very beautiful roof above your head.
There are 15 ocean residences arranged in a horseshoe shape over the lagoon. Across the island, a central hub, The Retreat, sits like a magnificent sailing ship at the end of a long boardwalk. Given its petite size of only two hectares, it’s amazing how many secluded spots there are where you can disappear – hammocks swaying in the native garden, day beds with canopies in the white sand, dining tables in the jungle, lounges tucked away in a corner of the bar, each spot with a vista of the water, the colours ranging from pale aquamarine to deepest cobalt. The resort doesn’t take children under 15, which further adds to the tranquillity.
The residences, designed by Japanese architect Yuji Yamazaki, are exquisite light boxes with Tasmanian oak floors, the one-bedroom homes measuring 300 square metres, with the largest private sundecks in the Maldives, 44-square-metre pools perfect for laps, wrap-around living spaces and Zenlike bathrooms that capture the delicate sea breezes. The front doors face a quiet beach and the decks have steps directly to the lagoon, which is teeming with colourful fish. Some of the best diving in the Maldives can be accessed from here, and the resort has its own ‘dive butlers’, or certified dive instructors. Even the spa will come to you if you wish.
Kudadoo’s ‘anything, anytime, anywhere’ policy means that you can do pretty much whatever you like without judgement. If you feel like spa
Given its petite size of only two hectares, it’s amazing how many secluded spots there are where you can disappear
treatments from dawn to dusk, or later, this can be arranged. If you’d prefer dinner at midnight or a wine-tasting in the impressive cellar at noon (there are six complimentary labels of house champagne), it can be organised. If you feel like eating breakfast off a floating tray in your pool or taking a jet-ski safari to a further island, it’s only a phone call away. Everything is included in the tariff, apart from the owner’s premium wines, and nothing is too much trouble. It’s sybarite heaven.
For the more socially inclined guests there’s The Retreat, a lofty, twolevel building open to the breezes, with decks that prove shelter from the two differing monsoons. Architect Yamazaki designed it to resemble the wooden ships that traded in these waters throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The stepped, pagoda-like roof is tiled with solar panels that provide all the power for the resort. Downstairs, there’s a restaurant, with indoor and outdoor spaces, an oversized horizon pool, a gym and a gorgeous stone bar that at night lights up like a Japanese lantern, with a verandah on all sides providing multiple places to dine or chill.
The Kudadoo Wellness retreat features bathtubs overlooking the lagoon and a menu of treatments drawing on Balinese and Thai therapies. Needing to try as many treatments as I could for research purposes, I had four massages in three days, starting with an excellent massage to mitigate against jet lag, followed by another with hot poultices to soothe aching muscles, a facial that uses jade stones to tone and lift the skin, and the wonderfully uplifting Himalayan salt ritual, which begins with meditation in the Maldives’s only Himalayan salt room and ends with a massage using warm coconut oil and hot salt stones.
Meals are as healthy or as decadent as you like, the locations and timing unscripted according to guests’ whims. Executive chef Antoine Lievaux focuses, where possible, on produce from local islands. Breakfasts are both indulgent and healthy – there are chia puddings, fresh juices, tropical fruits and six kinds of eggs Benedict, as well as lobster on green-pea fritter, smoothie bowls, scrambled-egg bowls and more calorific choices such as waffles with honey and Chantilly cream. Bread and pastries are irresistible, including the best tarte tatin I’ve ever eaten, even better than any I’ve had in Paris. Lunch choices range from pizzas to Maldivian reef fish curries. At night, dinner can be taken in the restaurant or in a candle-lit setting anywhere on the island. Guests are consulted before arrival about their tastes and dietary requirements.
Then there’s the highlight for some – a refrigerated cheese room with deli meats and cheeses flown in from Europe twice a week. Handily, the wine cellar is adjacent and a Maldivian sommelier (who is teetotal) is on call to pair wine and cheese or to supervise individual wine tastings.
Water sports include a full range of PADI courses, scuba diving and snorkelling sessions, kayaking, sailing, windsurfing, shark diving with underwater scooters, fishing and kite-surfing. There’s also bioluminescent night snorkelling with a resident marine biologist.
If the seclusion gets too much, guests also can use the facilities at Hurawalhi, also adults-only, which features the largest glass-domed underwater restaurant in the Maldives. It’s only a five-minute speedboat trip away, with a tennis court, soccer ground, champagne pavilion, three restaurants and regular nightly entertainment.
Me? I was overjoyed just to be able to swim alone in the lagoon, swing on a hammock and leave footprints on Kudadoo’s pristine shores.
Go to www.kudadoo.com.
If you feel like eating breakfast in your pool or taking a jet-ski safari to a further island, it’s only a phone call away