A Taste Of Paradise

At these idyllic luxury resorts in the Maldives, global flavours and local ingredients make for a delicious discovery of terroir, culture and community.

- Grace Ma

For luxury island resorts in the Maldives, a holiday destination where the average length and variety are crucial in keeping guests intrigued and impressed enough to return for their next vacation. Chefs are constantly pulling out their creative stops while emphasizing locavore and local traditions.

MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES

At Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, executive chef Christian Pedersen teases palates with surprising twists on common ingredients: think a sous vide lobster with radish, avocado purée, caviar, and mango fermented for 21 days. The surprisingly balanced combination of acidity, creaminess, and funk is the perfect foil to the local crustacean's sweet firm flesh. In the balmy breeze of Conrad's open-air Vilu Restaurant & Bar located at the edge of a lagoon, light but flavourful dishes like this make for pleasant meals.

Over at Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, where we dig into a four-course lunch, the distraction from colourful reef fish and black-tipped sharks swimming merrily around is real. But the food holds its own. A wagyu beef tartar whets the appetite with burrata and confit tomato; crisp Maldivian lobster tortellini complemented by grilled sweet corn and charred leek was a pleasant deviation from the conventional grilled rendition; a miso and truffle marinated black cod is enhanced by the fresh grassiness of green peas; and a refreshing yuzu mousse with passion fruit, pineapple and coriander cleans off any lingering heaviness on the palate. The portions are well controlled, and no one leaves heaving.