Mr & Mrs Smith

The Kandy House

Kandy, Sri Lanka

Seductive boutique hotel The Kandy House, 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.

Need to know

• Rooms Eight, including four Deluxe and four more spacious Ultra rooms.
• Rates Double rooms from $215.00, excluding tax at 13 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional service charge of 10% per room per night on checkout.
  Prices have been converted from the hotel's local currency ($215), via XE.com, using today's exchange rate.
• Facilities 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.
• 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.
• Check-out 11am; check-in, 2pm, but both flexible subject to availability.
• 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. More...
• Eco-friendly The Kandy House uses locally sourced, seasonal food where possible and makes bicycles available for guest use. Smoking is allowed in outdoor areas only.
• Hotel closed The Kandy House closes during Sinhala New Year, usually 12–15 April.
• 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).

Food and drink at The Kandy House

• Hotel restaurant The Kandy House 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.
• Dress code Glamorous vagabond will see you through. Barefoot is the house style but diamanté flip-flops will look a treat.
• 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.
• 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).
• 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.
  

The Kandy House Amunugama Walauwa, Gunnepana, Gunnepana