Brand
One&Only
Hotel reviews, stays, and stories.
One&Only Reethi Rah is 40 minutes by yacht from the airport at Malé, and six people were standing on the dock waiting when we pulled in. The man running the place, Jean-Luc Naret, used to be Director General of the Michelin Guides. We ate most nights at Botanica, the organic restaurant, at a small table under a big banyan tree — and when it started raining they had us inside the greenhouse before we got wet. That greenhouse is where they grow what ends up on the plate.
Rain took most of that trip. In one clear stretch we dove a shipwreck offshore and met the oriental sweetlip, black and white with neon yellow polka-dot fins, which is now my favorite fish. Back at the villa, housekeeping left tropical fruit every time they cleaned — rambutan and dragon fruit one day, passion fruit the next. One grievance: we were given bikes to get around the island, and some of the other guests were given golf carts.