At table: hotels chosen for their restaurants

On a ten-day hotel stay, you dine ten times in the same place, or nearly. That says how much the evening table matters, and it is a question to ask before booking. A buffet, however generous, can end up looking the same from one night to the next; an à la carte restaurant, a wine cellar, a cuisine from elsewhere change the rhythm of a week.

The eight hotels that follow each have at least one restaurant worth the detour, and sometimes several. They range from three stars to five, from Cantonese cooking to the tasting menu, and one of them draws as many Mauritians as its own guests.

At Poste de Flacq, Constance Prince Maurice has two things found nowhere else on the island. The first is Le Barachois, a floating restaurant of five pontoons, set in the middle of the estate’s natural fish reserve and linked to the shore by a wooden walkway: forty seats, seafood, and dinner only.

The second is the cellar, one hundred and seventy-five square metres next to L’Archipel restaurant, with more than twenty-five thousand bottles and one thousand nine hundred labels from around the world, a tasting area for ten people and two cabinets, one for cheese, the other for charcuterie. L’Archipel itself serves gourmet cooking with a Mauritian influence, à la carte, above the pool and the beach.

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LUX* Belle Mare

★★★★★Belle MareSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

At LUX* Belle Mare, food is the very reason for the address. Amari by Vineet serves contemporary Indian cooking, Duck Laundry Chinese gastronomy with its tasting menus, MONDO international cooking all day long with live cooking stations, and Beach Rouge turns festive in the evening.

In the middle of the gardens, Royce Street is a 1933 Rolls Royce Hooper limousine converted into a South-East Asian street kitchen. The artisan ice-cream maker ICI makes its ice creams in front of guests, in small batches, with flavours that change every day.

At Palmar, SALT has built its dining on a firm principle: no buffet, dishes prepared to order and only local suppliers. Tek Tek has just ten covers and serves a menu of six to eight courses built around the Mauritian tradition of sea to plate, in two sittings, at 19:00 and 21:30, except on Sundays.

In the morning, the SALT Bakery bakes its bread in association with the Paris bakery Du Pain et des Idées and roasts its coffee on site. The Good Kitchen serves à la carte from morning to night. The hotel is for adults only.

On Palmar beach, the Seasense, renovated in August 2024 and for adults only, has made its wine cellar its finest asset. Le Connaisseur holds more than a thousand bottles from France, South Africa, Italy and Spain, among them over a hundred prestige labels, from Moët & Chandon to Dom Pérignon, and an in-house sommelier guides the tasting.

L’Epicure, the international gourmet restaurant, serves dinner à la carte beneath a traditional Mauritian thatched roof facing the ocean, from 19:00 to 22:00. Lunch is taken at Ti Lambic, the beach bar, with your feet in the sand.

At Port Chambly, between a lagoon and a river, The Address has only forty-two rooms, and its Japanese restaurant, Izumi, has two chefs from Asia. Teppanyaki, ramen and sushi are served at tatami tables, at the teppanyaki counter or on the terrace; Izumi serves dinner from Tuesday to Saturday and lunch only on Saturday.

La Fourchette, Mediterranean in inspiration, opens every day, from 6:30 to 22:30, and covers the rest of the week. On the village square, Piano Rouge serves until 23:30, with live music and a view of the river and the sea.

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Aanari Hotel & Spa

★★★Flic-en-FlacSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

In the heart of Flic-en-Flac, the Aanari is a three-star hotel of fifty rooms, and its restaurant draws as many of its own guests as Mauritians from all over the island. Mei Yan, with two hundred seats, serves the Cantonese cooking of two chefs from mainland China: Peking duck carved in the dining room, stuffed taro, Japanese tofu with Chinese vegetables, fresh chilli crab, grilled lobster.

At the Colonial Garden, the evening buffet changes theme every day: Mauritian on Tuesday with a sega show, Indian on Thursday, Chinese on Saturday with live music, barbecue on Sunday. Mei Yan opens from 12:00 to 22:00.

On the beach at Trou aux Biches, Le Cardinal has only thirteen suites and a single restaurant, La Table du Cardinal, gourmet and entirely à la carte, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Guests eat indoors or on the deck, facing the bay.

A beach bar serves light lunches and cocktails, with themed dinners. With only one restaurant, it is wise to dine out from time to time: Trou aux Biches and Grand Baie are five kilometres away.

At Belle Mare, Long Beach lines up five restaurants in clearly separate registers. Hasu is the Japanese table, with its grill, sushi station and yakitori bar, à la carte at dinner; Chopsticks serves Chinese, Thai and Indian cooking beneath a bamboo ceiling; Sapori is the Italian for lunch.

Tides stands with its feet in the sand: lunch from 12:00 to 15:00, afternoon tea with homemade crêpes, then dinner of fresh fish and Mauritian cooking by candlelight. At the Shores bar, open from 11:00 to 22:00, the list is known for its Mauritian rums.

In several of these houses, the speciality tables have few seats and serve only in the evening. They should be booked on arrival, sometimes as soon as the stay is confirmed.