If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD222.42), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
A boutique hideaway seasoned with local flavour, Ahu Bay is an oceanfront idyll of suites and villas on a quieter stretch of Sri Lanka’s southwest coast. Its location – north of Balapitiya, on an oceanswept promontory flanked by jungle-fringed, sand beaches – flirts with perfection. The additions of a spa, gastronomic dining and a hotel-spanning infinity pool bring resort frills to its boutique charms. This is not, however, a place to fly and flop… The wealth and finesse of tours and experiences on offer elevate Ahu Bay into the most brilliant of basecamps for getting to know Sri Lanka.
11am. Earliest check-in, 2pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability and a fee, but must be arranged ahead of time.
Prices
Double rooms from £233.30 ($291), including tax at 30.99 per cent.
More details
Rates include breakfast à la carte, served in the hotel restaurant.
Also
Unfortunately this on-the-beach stay is unsuitable for wheelchair-users.
Please note
span id="docs-internal-guid-ab7ea826-7fff-d94c-99d9-72ddb50cd3f0">On Poya days (full moon), alcohol is served in your room only and not in any communal areas.
dir="ltr">Rates include VAT, but there’s an additional 11% service charge a night, for each room.
At the hotel
Concierge, paid laundry service and free WiFi. In rooms: ceiling fan, smart TV, umbrella, beach bag, minibar stocked with beer, soft drinks, Dilmah Tea, and local snacks, free coffee- and tea-making kit, and local, natural bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Suites often steal the show when it comes to favourites, but can we take a moment to appreciate the high-spec decor, generous size and balcony ocean-views that come with Bay View Rooms at Ahu Bay. Upgrade to a Bay View Pool Suite for a private plunge-pool, garden, and a four-poster in the bedroom. Groups and families (teens only) will love the Pool Residences – two-storey, three-bedroom villas, each with a private plunge pool, gardens and courtyard.
Poolside
In front of the restaurant, beanbag-style sunloungers sit squat on a wooden deck edging Ahu Bay’s infinity pool, where the Indian Ocean views put you as close to sea swimming as fresh-water dips come. You’re right beside the restaurant and bar, meaning there’s no need to wander far for refreshment, and it’s open from 7am until 6pm, and has a lifeguard. If you’re in a Bay View Pool Suite or Pool Residence, you’ll also have a private plunge-pool – a raised, concrete-sided confection that sits on your private terrace, and has step entry at one end.
Spa
Beside the hotel entrance, a spiral staircase takes you directly to Sanctuary Spa, a modest-but-airy retreat combining a welcome lounge and two ensuite treatment rooms. Its menu of head-to-toe therapies takes full advantage of island-grown herbs and spices: we love the sound of its spa bundle which parcels up a shoulder massage with a cooling mint foot-soother. Body rituals range from hot-stone treatments to deep-tissue workouts to a calming massage with warm herbal compresses.
Packing tips
If you have even one artistic bone in your body, bring art materials, as this most picturesque of coastal landscapes is a surefire muse.
Also
Scout your favourite spot in the gardens or on the sand, then arrange a private dinner for two for a memorable five courses by candlelight.
Children
Over-12s are welcome at Ahu Bay, and three-bedroom Pool Residences also include a bunk room that’s ideal for two children.
Sustainability efforts
When your hotel is oceanside, its jungly gardens entwined with Sri Lanka’s sandy shores, reminders of your environmental responsibilities are all around. The hotel’s build incorporates natural ventilation and light pathways to reduce energy consumption. There are energy- and water-saving measures in place; notable training for staff on energy conservation; no single-use plastics, front of house, and ongoing efforts to eradicate them service-side, too. Bath products are refillable, and Ahu Bay’s hot-water supply is solar-charged. In the gardens, endemic species take priority, and their nurture is organic and pesticide-free. Staff take part in regular beach clean-ups; the hotel partners with the local turtle-conservation project, and it’s involved in mangrove restoration in the backwaters.
As you face the ocean, an L-shaped sofa set below the main restaurant is an idyllic spot for sundowners – you’ll need to bag it well ahead of sunset.
Dress Code
The sartorial bar goes no higher than smart-casual (and beachwear is fine by day). For evening, we’re leaning towards flowing dresses, oversize tropical prints, and perhaps a sailor stripe or two.
Hotel restaurant
Seasonal ingredients and a hyperlocal supply chain are the cornerstones of the Sri Lankan cuisine you’ll find at Ahu Bay’s all-day restaurant. The ocean-soundtracked heart of this hotel, it sits behind the pool – an open-sided space, nautically dressed in shades of white and blue, with woven chairs, and boat paddles and fishing baskets upcycled into art. Breakfast’s local heroes amid the bircher, omelettes and pancakes include a herb-flecked coconut salad, and a village-style tapioca bowl with chilli sambal. For dinner, debate the pros of choosing marinated-overnight Cajun chicken, popcorn-crusted Angus fillet, or a banquet-like seafood platter; or plump for the delicious local flavours of lagoon crab curry or lobster kottu with shredded paratha. And leave room for desserts such as watalappan (coconut custard) with jaggery syrup, or dark-cocoa-and-mint-tea mousse.
Hotel bar
There’s no firm demarcation of a drinking den at Ahu Bay, so much as a free-flowing space between restaurant, bar and pool, where you can enjoy a cocktail, beer or glass of wine. Please note that on Poya days (full moon), alcohol is served in your room only and not in any communal areas.
Last orders
Restaurant service flows all day from breakfast through lunch and afternoon tea, to dinner. And the bar is open all day until 11pm.
Room service
There’s no room service at Ahu Bay, but the compact layout of the hotel and the restaurant’s all-day set-up means that your next meal or snack is only ever a saunter away.
Ahu Bay is oceanfront on Ahungalla Beach, on Sri Lanka’s southwest coast, south of Colombo.
Planes
Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport is a two-hour drive from Ahu Bay and private transfers can be arranged.
Automobiles
Free parking is available at the hotel, which is off the Welipenna exit of the Southern Expressway from Colombo.
Worth getting out of bed for
Without leaving the grounds of Ahu Bay, there’s a clutch of memorable experiences you may want to try: take afternoon high tea in the garden; pick your favourite spot for a candlelit five-course dinner; or deep-dive into Sri Lankan cuisine with a cookery class. The hotel has an impressive glut of tours to tempt you further afield too. For nature lovers, there’s a shoreline walking tour with a naturalist guide, or a cruise on an outrigger along the Madu River to visit the estuaries and mangroves of Balapitiya. Two wheels is the way to see the Dedduwa Backwaters with a guided bicycle ride. Or lace up your boots and enjoy a trek through rainforest and marshland in the Beraliya Jungle, which is home to the mysteriously titled Crying Waterfall, just 45 minutes from Ahungalla. Water-based adventures are also in abundance. On the Bentota River in Aluthgama, a watersports centre is your one-stop hub for anything from deep-sea fishing trips to wakeboarding to SUP. And between December and April, there are whale-watching tours (either in a shared boat or private). Cinnamon is a big deal in Sri Lanka: take a tour of an estate, plant your own sapling, then head out onto the waters of Baddegama Lagoon, which is edged by cinnamon groves, before enjoying a foot massage with cinnamon oil, followed by a suitably aromatic lunch. One of southwestern Sri Lanka’s other famous exports is architect Geoffrey Bawa – and a hotel-arranged tour in his honour visits some of his houses and gardens. Or if you prefer your architecture a little more history-steeped, sign up for an after-dark tour of Galle Fort, plus its surrounding cemeteries, dungeons and mills. By day, the hotel’s happy to pull a few strings so that you can visit the house of a puppeteering family in Ambalangoda to explore the art of puppet making and try puppetry for yourselves before seeing how it’s done by the pros during a brief show.
Local restaurants
Ahungalla is less built-up than other southwest coastal resorts, so by evening it’s unlikely you’ll want to stray far from the high culinary standards you’ll find at Ahu Bay. There are a handful of options for lunch, however: at Jungle Beach, seafood, international and Sri Lankan plates are served in a beachfront thatch-roofed dining room. At Ahungalla Heritance, Mustard Coffee Shop is an open-sided café with ocean views, or head to its main restaurant, Jute, where the plates are as polished as the teak-lined dining room. Finally, a trip to Smith-approved Lunuganga Estate brings an opportunity for lunch, walked off in the grounds of Geoffrey Bawa’s blissful gardens.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this oceanfront stay in southwest Sri Lanka and unpacked their cinnamon sticks and bottles of Arrack, a full account of their beach-house break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Ahu Bay in Ahungalla…
Snapshots from Ahu Bay, a boutique hideaway on Sri Lanka’s serene southwest coast: palm-shaded afternoon tea in the garden; an ocean-soundtracked dip in the infinity pool; faceplanting on a towel while Balinese-inspired wonders are pummelled on your back at the spa; whale-spotting from your private boat charter, or bicycling around mangrove-fringed backwaters. Ahungalla is one of southwest Sri Lanka’s quieter coastal addresses, and home to Ahu Bay, a tucked-away treasure of just 13 rooms and two standalone villas. And yet its serene locale and modest proportions belie the bolthole’s stellar hotel credentials. Part of the Resplendent Ceylon family, it’s from the same stable as Smith-approved Kayaam House, and built from scratch by owner and hotel-project-management maestro, Cyril Jacob. Its pedigree shines through in its gastronomic all-day restaurant, in the level of friendly service, and in the spec of your spacious suite or villa, adorned with local art and kitted out with Sri Lankan tiling, whitewashed teak and bespoke furnishings. And there can be few similarly small-scale stays that offer such a wealth of well-curated trips and tours, covering interests from cookery to horticulture; conservation, and wilderness adventures; architecture, art, and theatre. At Ahu Bay, you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to cherry-picking your snapshots…
