Raffles Udaipur

The room that carries the whole day, and the only address here that serves the whole house: its own menus plus dishes from Sawai Kitchen, from Rasoi and from the Raffles Patisserie, from 7 in the morning until 11 at night. Start with the signature breakfast and come back for the Rajputana cooking. Its best table is not indoors: outside the arcade there is a black-and-white chequered terrace with the reflecting pool, the parterre and the Aravalli hills through the arch, and two chairs at the rail.

The Indian speciality kitchen, and the room to book. Heirloom recipes recovered from the royal households of Rajputana, cooked with local seasonal produce and old technique, each course belonging to a distinct gharana — a lineage — and carrying its own story. Much of this food nearly went with the cooks who kept it: it is dry, water-scarce cooking, shaped by war, and long and complicated to make. Dinner only, in a long room with a grey banquette down one wall, brass vessels on the table and a timber coffered ceiling overhead.

A room whose back wall is a library of labelled spice jars, and a chef who will cook in front of you in the styles of Sailana, Rajputana and Mewar and then sit you down at the chef's table to eat the results. It is a cookery school from 1 in the afternoon until 5 and a chef's table from 7 until 9, which makes it the only room on the island that changes what it is halfway through the day. There is a longer version, a cookout with the Masterchef, for anyone who would rather be at the stove than at the table.

The least ceremonious room on the island: a curved counter of cakes and viennoiserie under green-shaded lamps, cane bistro chairs at marble tables, everything baked that morning. Good coffee, a slice of something homemade, and a long window down one side. Open 7 in the morning until 11 at night, which makes it the answer to arriving hungry at an odd hour.

A double-height panelled room lined with books to a mezzanine, chandeliers down the length of it and armchairs set out in twos — the Raffles institution, done here as a library. Take a book and a classic cocktail, or take the afternoon Hi-Tea, which is savouries and desserts with a tea and coffee list the Tea Sommelier will read for you. Open from 11 in the morning until 11 at night, which makes it the room to be in when the afternoon is too hot to be outdoors.

The bar every Raffles has, and here it is a proper room rather than a tribute: a two-storey wall of latticed jali in teal and orange rising behind the bottles, a marble counter with stools along it, and tapas coming out of the kitchen. Good wine, Indian spirits, and a cocktail list whose signature is the Udaipur Sling — this house's twist on the Singapore original. Open 5 in the evening until midnight.

Chilled drinks, tropical cocktails, fresh juices and light plates beside the temperature-controlled pool, with the cabanas down both sides, the lawn behind and the green wall of the Aravallis closing the view. It is the least dressed-up of the 11 rooms here, and the one you will spend most of a hot afternoon in.

Across the lake at Lakeshore, and the main dining room on that side: a long room panelled in soft green with a painted landscape at one end, a chandelier over the centre table, and glazed doors down the whole of one side onto the water. Regional Indian classics reworked with a contemporary hand, tables outside, and the same service as the island. Open 7 in the morning until 11 at night.

A tall room on the lakeshore — marble columns, a coffered white ceiling, a chandelier at the centre and a timber bar along one side — built for banquets, celebrations and the kind of dinner that has a reason. It opens at 3 in the afternoon and runs until 11. If you are here for a wedding, this is where a good deal of it happens.

A lakeside room for the middle of the day: teas, botanical infusions, fine pastries and light savouries, taken at pale grey-and-gold chairs under a brass chandelier, with arched glazed doors onto the lake. It opens at 7 and runs until 11, but the afternoon is what it was built for.

The rooftop bar at Lakeshore, above Udai Sagar, with an infinity pool running out to the horizon and a scalloped pavilion roof over the seating. Cocktails, a long spirits list, and the island hotel lit on the far side of the water — which is the one view of Raffles Udaipur you cannot get from inside it. Open 11 in the morning until half past 11 at night; go at 6.