Kismet

Where the kitchen is the reason

Houses you would book for dinner

Some houses you book for the room. These you book for dinner.

In each of these the kitchen is what the building fills up for. At one of them the chef took the wall out between the pass and the dining room, so you eat looking into it. The reason to go is the table.

Under each house is the room worth the evening and what comes out of it. Ask the concierge to book the table when you book the room. At Trisara you can skip the dining rooms altogether — the chef comes to the villa, lights a fire on the deck, and cooks whichever of them you name.

5 houses

The whole resort from the air at dusk: two stepped towers of stacked white blocks with a bridge slung between them, the lights coming on along the podium, and the beach curving away into the Gulf beyond.
At dusk: 2 stepped towers of stacked white blocks with a bridge slung between them, and the beach curving away into the Gulf.Pictured · Atlantis The Royal
The dining room at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, dark and low-lit, with an enormous bronze pineapple standing at the entrance and the fires of the open kitchen glowing along the back wall.

Dubai

Atlantis The Royal

This is a building people come to for the eating.

Ariana Bundy cooks the Persian food of her family. Carbone brought its New York Italian-American room over whole, tuxedoed captains and tableside Caesar and all. Estiatorio Milos runs a Greek fish market with the day's catch on ice and the Marina in the window, and La Mar does Peru at full volume. Underneath all of it is Gastronomy, the breakfast every rate includes: 17 live stations under a bank of brass domes.

The kitchen
Nobu's first pool and beach club anywhere, and Ariana Bundy's first restaurant.
The house in full →
An infinity pool at sunset, two parasols and a lounger in silhouette against a flat orange sea, the pool holding the same light.

Phuket

Trisara

Jimmy Ophorst took the wall down between the kitchen and the dining room.

PRU is at the top of the hill, you eat looking at the pass, and there is no à la carte, only the tasting. At Tri Vananda, 15 minutes inland, JAMPA cooks over live fire off a closed-loop organic farm. Downhill it gets more relaxed with every step: Thai Library is Southern Thai homestyle done seriously, and Southern Thai means hot.

The kitchen
Every ingredient at PRU is Thai, down to the forest peppercorns.
The house in full →
The palace at dusk seen straight down its own fountain avenue: a sandstone front a third of a mile wide, arcades lit amber under every arch, the domes going up in stages to the great one in the middle, and two ranks of jets running away from the portico into the foreground.

Abu Dhabi

Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental

There are 12 rooms here to eat and drink in, and the hard part is choosing.

Talea is Antonio Guida's, run day to day by his protégé, and it cooks cucina di famiglia: ossobuco, vitello tonnato, ravioli. Martabaan is Hemant Oberoi's — 40 years as the Taj group's grand chef, now cooking Varqui crab and dum ki nalli over the Gulf. Hakkasan is 16,000 square feet of carved screens and latticing off the main lobby, with its own entrance for people who are not staying. The room you will use most is the Lebanese Terrace, under olive trees and stained glass, where the mezzeh is the point and the arak is not optional.

The kitchen
Vendôme does breakfast and only breakfast, 7 until half past 11.
The house in full →
A gilded sunburst medallion radiates across a domed ceiling, a crystal chandelier hanging just below it.

Delhi NCR

The Imperial

One restaurant here is a walk from East Asia through Java to the south of India.

The Spice Route runs through 9 rooms built around temple pillars and murals to an open courtyard, with separate lunch and dinner sittings. The all-day room is 1911, art deco, a verandah and a wide palm-shaded terrace, open from half past 6 in the morning until close to midnight. San Gimignano makes its pasta by hand and keeps a pergola terrace for cooler evenings. Patiala Peg serves its namesake drink at its original size, a 120ml pour, in a room built around the Maharaja who is said to have poured it first.

The kitchen
The drive is lined with 24 royal palms, planted the year it opened in 1936.
The house in full →
Purple Mughal-style arches and a gold-detailed ceiling frame the dining room at Dum Pukht Begum's, teal curtains lit from behind at one end.

Hyderabad

ITC Kohenur, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Hyderabad

The room is rough-hewn wood and stone, and the tandoor is worked in the middle of it.

That room is Peshawri, rustic rather than polished, and the kababs and a slow-cooked Dal Bukhara are the order there, alongside Sikandari Raan and a Naan Bukhara pulled long enough to become its own small performance. Dum Pukht Begum's plates the old court recipes of Hyderabad's royal kitchens under mirrored arches and deep maroon upholstery. Golconda Pavilion is glazed on every side, and Sulemani chai and bun-maska are served there from 6 until 7 in the evening.

The kitchen
Yi Jing sits under a gold cloud motif, and Ottimo around a wood-fired oven.
The house in full →

Tell the concierge what you want to eat and which night is free; the rest is arranged before you arrive.

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