Adigar's Manor

Style

Chic mini-palazzo

Setting

Paradisical palms and paddies

Seductive boutique hotel Adigar's Manor, in Kandy’s leafy outskirts, effortlessly purveys intimate luxury. A 200-year-old aristo palazzo gone 21st-century, it blends minimalist lines, atypical antiques and quirky strokes of colour around a central courtyard, with just eight romantic individually designed rooms, named after indigenous butterflies. If you can bear to leave the genial grub and your chaise longue on the veranda, enticing hammocks beckon for ginning and sinning around the infinity pool.

Facilities

Rooms

Eight, including four Deluxe and four more spacious Ultra rooms.

Checkout

11am; check-in, 2pm, but both flexible subject to availability.

Also

Hotel Closed

Adigar's Manor closes during Sinhala New Year, usually 12–15 April.

Free Internet Access

Laundry

Pool

On-Site Restaurant

Spa

At the Hotel

Free WiFi in the Butterfly Bar and on the restaurant veranda. In rooms: waffle linen bathrobes, natural bath products made from local herbs. A laundry service with one-day turnaround is also available.

Our Favourite Rooms

For romantics, Deluxe room the Pioneer (though small and sans bath tub) is nearest the infinity pool and has its own veranda and garden with a hammock. We also love Ultra room Indian Admiral, which sports an original mahogany veranda with French café table. You may need high-jump skills to access the ancestral four-poster, but you can recover afterwards in the claw-foot bath-with-a-view. Ultra room Red Spot Duke will bring the scarlet harlot out in anyone, with a shiny metal bathroom and cane chaise longue on the wraparound veranda.

Poolside

The expansive infinity pool is fringed by palms and jungle foliage, with cushioned teak sunloungers and towels festooned with fresh frangipanis on the surrounding lawn. Early risers can breakfast poolside gazing at buffalos in the fields.

Packing Tips

Take a map if you like to know where you're heading: locals don’t believe in them. And swap the Choos for sandals you won’t mind leaving outside temples. A hip flask will come in handy so you don’t get caught ‘dry’ on poya days (full-moon holy festivals), and mosi-repellant is de rigueur.

Also

Every honeymoon couple staying three nights or more receives a bottle of bubbly, an aromatherapy bath, a tray of tempura, a pair of cocktails, his and hers designer sarongs and a candlelit dinner for two (valid April–June; September–November only).

Children

Children over-12 are welcome and can stay with parents or in separate rooms (although there's no single room occupancy rate). Extra beds for older kids (US$65 a night) can be added to Ultra rooms Indian Admiral or Black Rajah for under-16s.

Gallery

Food & Drink

Top Table

If you feel sociable, share the candlelit ancestral dining table with others in the house. For more secluded romance, opt for the table beside the pool, lit by stars and serenaded by bullfrogs and crickets.

Dress Code

Glamorous vagabond will see you through. Barefoot is the house style but diamanté flip-flops will look a treat.

Hotel Restaurant

Adigar's Manor restaurant serves up top-notch food on a relaxed veranda with Through the Looking-Glass mirrors and café tables for two. A 10-course curry feast is laid on twice a week. Other evenings are also delectable, with retro comfort-meets-Asian fusion fare: expect delights such as Thai pumpkin soup with blue swimmer crab, home-made crab ravioli or Indonesian goat rendang (a spicy curry) followed by rhubarb crumble or cardomon kulfi (ice-cream). Lunch is lighter, with pastas, salads and club sandwiches to savour poolside. Home-baked bread and cakes will please carb lovers.

Hotel Bar

Hit the bar, a low-lit, chill-out area under white arches – or take your Tiger beer out to deep canvas bucket seats under the stars. Dreamy drinks include Veuve Clicquot champagne, plus interesting wines and dependable cocktails blended from house brews of lemongrass, vanilla, ginger or chilli vodka. Try the arrack sour along with fresh-roasted cashews. The cure-all for jet-lag and unsettled tummies is the thambili, a coconut drink available at the roadside, which is also perfect chilled as a mixer with vodka or gin.

Last Orders

Apart from during Kandy's Perahera Festival (over 10 days in July–August), the restaurant stops serving at 9.30pm (unless you request a later meal in advance). The bar goes to bed when you do.

Room Service

Staff can deliver anything off the menu from 7am–9pm (six out of eight bedrooms have their own veranda table). For breakfast you can order either full English or local (such as mango pancakes with buffalo curd).

Planes

Touch down at capital Colombo's Bandaranaike International Airport; from there it's a three-and-a-half-hour drive (110 kilometres) north-east to Kandy. If you'd rather wing your way there, air taxis operate flights from Colombo airport to Kandy's domestic airport at Victoria Reservoir, a 20-minute drive from the hotel. Call our Smith24 Team on 03300 376 891 to arrange flights and transfers.

Trains

The Airport Express luxury train service between the airport and Colombo Secretariat Station (near the Hilton) aims to cover Kandy next. Ordinary inter-city trains run between Colombo and Kandy (three hours), but are crowded with no space for luggage. Kandy station is nine kilometres from the hotel.

Automobiles

Cars are the easiest mode from the airport, although it's a three-and-a-half hour drive on unforgiving roads. Don’t attempt self-drive: road signs don’t exist and other drivers are not always insured. If you must, remember: size of vehicle plus strength of horn defines right-of-way. Try Dream Island Tours (www.dreamislandtours.com; +94 (0)718 560 379) for BMWs and 4WDs. Valet parking is available at the hotel. Phew!

Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt

This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .