I have never seen so many leaf scoopers together. Probably because I haven’t seen a longer swimming pool. It is 102m long, serpentine, heated. Ducks swim in the flanking pools that are seemingly contiguous, overhanging trees almost brushing the water and pretty little copses reflected in the meandering water to the confusion of the kingfishers.
The ducks like their water cold. And their bread dry, we discover as we sit down to lunch on the patio of Kiyan, the ‘sky’ restaurant’, and they hop up and waddle over for a share of the delicious hard rolls in the bread basket… until the staff lure them away with whole loaves, to waters beyond the Elephanta-style pillars facing the pergola-covered patio.
The kingfisher dives in a brilliant blue streak for his lunch as our soup plates with the merest patina of the tomato orange broth, served with confit orange and purple basil, are cleared. He comes up empty; we dive into the sweet-miso-glazed Chilean sea bass with Puy lentils and wilted pak choy on a flavourful potato mash, and some ‘homemade’ ricotta gnudi with sunblushed tomatoes in a Parmesan cream sauce. We will end with the dark and deep signature dessert: coffee toffee pudding, a steamed worthy sitting sturdy in a moat of caramel sauce, with a sesame tuile for a drawbridge. Its fulsome comfort is the perfect counterpoint to the light, bright and sprightly salad the meal opened with, a scattering of small jewels: half a fresh fig, a cube of briny beetroot, a quenelle of goat’s cheese, sprigs of organic rocket and shavings of fennel.
The woods are turning dark and deep too as we thoughtfully decline coffee and head off to sleep off this repast. The sheer variety of moods and techniques the kitchen seems to excel in is matched by the architecture and landscaping in this flagship property from the new Dusit luxury spa resort brand.
The discreet gateway off the busy NH-8, a stone’s throw from the airport, curves down into a courtyard shaded by plumeria and guarded by a tall, tall hedge… of 6,50,000 sand-blasted brass leaves. We can’t quite believe our eyes and promise to come back for a second look to verify its metallic veins. Another metal sculpture, of a tree that might have belonged in this quiet, unpeopled courtyard, lives in Kiyan, complete with birds and nests. The brass-leaved courtyard reveals an unearthly shape in glowing creamy-yellow terrazzo beyond a pool with a stone boat, where a single greeter waits in a fairytale quintessence-of-Indian but not quite traditional outfit (designed by Suneet Varma). The golden terrazzo tunnel spirals down, past a huge skylight subtending a revolving circular grille that casts filigrees and dapples of sunlight on the chimney walls. It is a little Alice in Wonderland-meets-The Dune-meets-Thakuma’r Jhooli, to arrive in a sunken lobby with a low cavernous water feature, another stone boat glowing in the sunlight filtered through a myriad coloured glass panes. Designed as it is by Lek Bunnag and US firm Puccini, I can quite understand why a cluster of architects were conferencing here recently.
As ghagras swirl and leather heels click up, our personal ‘lifestyle executive’ offers a drink and then ushers up back up into the sunshine to our rooms. The building visible on the other side of the long pool has a Dusit logo window perforating its side, where stairs lead up to our floor. In front, the tall peculiarly Thai columns support the pergola of the Kiyan’s patio, next to the elevators. On the other side of the bank of steps, white tents smother the sound and dust of construction, where a branch of Kai, the Michelin-starred London eatery, will make its colonial outpost.
The ‘room’ is bigger than many a suite in this city, all room categories are the same size (60 sq m!) and we are charmed by the iPad which switches on mood lights, draws the blinds, turns on the TV, brings up a large selection of music to mix yourself, unlocks doors (literally). The room introduction is thorough and we decline an offer to unpack. A huge daybed and directorial desk flank a picture window. On the other side of the big bed, the open bathtub waits, next to twin vanities carved into a classic Thai floral motif out of a single piece of stone, in the contiguous five-fixture bathroom. There are floor-to-ceiling screens that can be rolled out for privacy, if you prefer. Behind the bathroom, by the doorway, is a walk-in closet. The interiors are wrapped in stone in the wet half, wood and fabric in the living space, a sloping wooden roof overhead. The top-end rooms, we find later, give straight onto the pool, have marble floors and white domed ceilings, and have sunken baths intervening between living spaces, and a separate steam cubicle.
As a quick in-room check-in ends and our lifestyle executive withdraws, our welcome drink of apple-flavoured ginger ale rolls discreetly up to the dulcet tones of the doorbell. And then it was time for a late breakfast, then a stroll back to the entrance to those brass ficus leaves, and the discovery of a side entrance down to Iah, the moon-themed underground bar with its own private courtyard and a moonlight-white Stein piano on the mezzanine… which brings us full circle to the food.
Some have complained of the priciness of the fare, but Chef Nishant Choubey’s Olive days are showing — creditably — in the ambitious conception as well as execution in this flagship property. There may be a couple of kitchen hands a tad heavyhanded with the salt cellar but for all my professional and personal nitpickiness, it is hard to make light of the general excellence of the kitchen. The roum ar harn wang (‘shrimp cake, crispy rice, hot basil chicken dumpling’) is as memorable as the chaat-like variation of Hyderabadi pathar ke gosht and keema aur dal maas ki kachori. The tom klong pla krob (tamarind-infused fish broth, crispy snapper) takes me back to a lunch in Hua Hin several winters ago, which is to say authenticity is well preserved in the Thai selection. The contemporanised Indian is even better. Homely flavours find the ante is upped in the Andaman lobster masala with samundri bhaat, essentially a spicy seafood khichri. The distinctly non-fishy urad dal wadi with achari rajma ka khichdi outdoes it, which is a revelation of its own. And unlike my recent experience at a couple of other places, the eggs Benedict arrive at the perfect pinnacle of poached.
The other attraction is the eponymous spa. The vaulting dome behind the secretive hedgerows is approached through a maze of stepping stones laid in water-filled courtyards. The fantasy is maintained all the way to your spacious treatment room, reached through a shaded walkway and leafy lane to a locked door, with a tree-tended courtyard beyond it that leads indoors, and no evidence of other people, staff or guest, sharing your space — indeed, no evidence that other such spaces even exist. Treatments can be had with the shades up and the sky in view, if you prefer, and the construct of the private sanctuary is flawless. As I consent to being sloughed down with Darjeeling tea leaves following a cuppa of green, I shed my initial wariness of the rules of the house, where every 15 minutes extra in the sauna or shower facilities (en suite) is chargeable. I can now quite imagine people paying to stay another 5, 10, 15… to delay being tolled back to the real world. As I am escorted back to my doorstep, I almost expect nightingales to sing.
With birds and butterflies roosting in the shrubbery and the copses that make me twist and turn across the eight acres of private space, through which a temple appears unannounced, and the three main buildings with tall pillars glimmer skyward, it is difficult to credit we are in the thick of the New Delhi-Gurgaon thoroughfare. We could be anywhere, but mostly I feel like we are nowhere. In Neverland perhaps. Or a magical secret garden.
The information
Where: Samalkha, NH-8; 10 minutes from Indira Gandhi International Airport
Accommodation: 50 rooms: 9 premium garden view, 21 premium pool view, 9 Devarana garden and 11 Devarana pool
Tariff rack rates: Rs 20,000 (premium garden view), Rs 22,000 (premium pool view), Rs 25,000 (Devarana garden) and Rs 30,000 (Devarana pool), taxes extra
Contact: 011-33552211, devarana.in