The Ritz Carlton Maldives is an incredibly luxurious resort great for adults and perfectly designed with kids in mind.  Part 3 of this series centers on the restaurants around the island.

This review will be separated into several installments given the vast array of content.  This installment will go into detail on the restaurants.  The next installment will look more closely at the kids club.

View other posts in this series:

• Qatar Airways A350-900 Q-Suites
• Al Mourjan Business Class Lounge
• Ritz Carlton, Part 1 – Arrival and Villa
• Ritz Carlton, Part 2 – Resort Facilities
• Ritz Carlton, Part 3 – Restaurants (this post)
• Ritz Carlton, Part 4 – Kids Club
• Singapore Airlines 737-8 Business Class
• Bonus: Video Review

Breakfast at La Locanda

Breakfast is included with most rates when paying cash, but is not available when paying points.  The Marriott Bonvoy program also does not have free breakfast at Ritz Carlton hotels for Platinum or higher elites, which is a bit unfortunate.  Marriott’s rules on free breakfast for elites varies significantly by hotel and region of the world, and I’ll have to get into those details another day.  That being said, because of the unique circumstances of how we booked this hotel, I did have free breakfast for two guests.  Kids also get free breakfast in Asia, which is a nice benefit when bringing the family.

La Locanda is positioned on the sunrise side of the Culinary Island.  The restaurant juts out over the cliff and is a popular place for passing fish to hang out.  Most mornings, we were one of the first guests to arrive and gave the restaurant a more intimate feel.  While there was plenty of outdoor seating, we opted to sit indoors every morning to make it easier to choose options from the buffet.

In our more youthful days, Jenn and I would go to breakfast late with the desire of skipping lunch and have an early dinner as a way to cut down on food expenses. Kids get in the way of that desire, as it’s a bit much to tell them we will skip meals. Plus, dinner at most locations doesn’t start until 7:00 PM at the earliest, so it felt difficult to follow that same formula here. The dining options prior to 7:00 PM are very limited.

Upon arrival to the restaurant, we were asked if we would like to try the elixir of the day.  The refreshments varied between smoothies and juices mixed with other ingredients like ginger or mint.  Alex and Char were intimidated by the drinks and chose not to drink them.

The options at the buffet rotated daily, preventing the selections from feeling stale.  The buffet was a fairly large size and the quality was excellent.  Options included cuisines from throughout Asia and comfort foods from home. For lighter eaters, they do offer a selection of salads, which I normally don’t see offered at a breakfast buffet.

On the first morning, the kids raided the pastry section (specifically the white chocolate donuts).  Croissants were located under the heat lamp and kept nicely crisp.  There were so many treats here and there was no way we were going to be able to try them all, especially with the selection changing daily.

Alex and Char must have hit a donut limit on that first day as every other day they instead focused on the Asian noodles and dim sum.  The noodle station has a chef who will help serve you a bowl of chicken noodles soup.  They also served congee, which hit the spot for Jenn.  Personally, I was quite happy with the har gow dim sum and could easily eat a dozen if I didn’t have any self-control.

Speaking of self-control (or lack thereof), the kids went hog wild with the yogurt drinks here.  There is a section of the buffet offering a wide variety of dairy and non-dairy products.  Every morning, it felt like the kids drank five each.  The restaurant staff encouraged them to drink more and, sure enough, by the end of our stay, they had depleted all the yogurt drinks.

The hotel also offered an extensive fruit selection.  Even the fruit options rotated daily.  Everything tasted fresh and ripe. They had a good selection of freshly-squeezed fruit juices. You could order the fruit juices off the menu or pick them up yourself from the buffet.

In addition to options available on the buffet, we were able to order any dish we wanted off the main menu as well. When we tried to limit ourselves to just a single option, the wait staff would encourage us to try more things.  Thus over the course of our five days at the Ritz, we ended up ordering just about everything on the menu.  In particular, Jenn liked the masala dosa, which came shaped like a giant inverted ice cream cone.  Also, a warning – if you are not a fan of spicy foods, avoid the curries.  While delicious, the curry packed a punch.

Lunch at Beach Shack

The Beach Shack felt perfectly placed on the island, right around where we always seemed to be around lunchtime. As expected based on its name, it’s located right on the beach. It’s also directly across from the Kids Club, gym, and recreation center.  The ambience here also felt incredibly inviting.  How could you not be happy with the views of the beach while dining?  And since this location is right on the beach, you certainly could dine in the cabanas or on the many beach chairs sprawled about.

We ended up ordering a few things off the menu across the days, including the burger, prawns, and fish. This had to have been the most expensive burger I recall buying. While they used quality ingredients, the burger itself wasn’t that memorable so I would only recommend getting it if you are feeling a little homesick.

Unlike at breakfast, the menu at any of the restaurants doesn’t rotate.  And speaking of menus, Alex and Char were big fans of the kids menu at the Ritz.  All restaurants offer the same kids menu, which is great as sometimes they just want to eat the same thing over and over.  The kids menu is affordably priced at just $15 per entrée and included freshly squeezed juices (though Alex preferred the bottled apple juice).  You might tell from the menus that food prices are a bit on the high side—but not egregiously high given the quality of the ingredients and that everything must be imported.  This made us appreciate the cheap kids meals even more.

Dinner at La Locanda

Our first night, we attempted to dine at La Locanda, the same restaurant where breakfast is located.  And please note the operative word here is “attempted”.  The kids were both awfully jetlagged at this point and both ended up asleep when we sat down to dine.

Starting at 6:00 PM, the restaurant serves Italian food, something the kids ask for everywhere we go.  The ambience is heightened here with the peaceful crashing of the ocean waves in the background.  Restaurant staff checked in on us regularly, especially given we had two sleeping children next to us.

While we had every intent to stay, the restaurant recommended we take the food back to the villa and finish dining in room.  We agreed, and our wonderful Aris Meeha Shaghaf came to take us back home.  She even carried Alex into the room and tucked him into bed for us.  The food arrived separately, and the restaurant even included a small dessert for us, perhaps sensing our disappointment in not being able to finish dinner at the restaurant.

The food itself was good but not memorable—though that could just be because it went cold during the time it was transported to our villa and as we got the kids ready for bed.

Dinner at Eau Bar

Our second night (and also on the fifth night), we dined at Eau Bar.  There is a small nightly presentation where a few performers light a hoop on fire and play music.  Alex enjoyed the show. Char was (yet again) asleep for the show on the second night but was finally awake for the performance on the fifth night.  The menu for dinner actually comes from Iwau, the Japanese restaurant next door.

While we tried a few dishes, our favorite was the nigiri. The fish was fresh and melted in our mouths. Buying individual nigiri or sashimi is a bit on the pricey side, but if you get a selection of three or five types, the price ends up not being too unreasonable. The other dishes were good, but personally I could just eat nigiri for the whole dinner and be completely satisfied.

Dinner at Summer Pavilion

Summer Pavilion is the Chinese restaurant here at the resort. It serves a few dim sum dishes and more traditional dinner selections. The food here seemed more expensive than at other restaurants. Some of that was specifically because of the dim sum–while delicious, it didn’t seem that much better than what I could get in Southern California for significantly lower prices. The mains here are a better value.

Restaurant staff here was able to cook up a special dish for the kids. While the regular kids meal selections exist here, Alex decided to go off-menu and the chef was able to make a noodle soup with wontons. They even had cute chopsticks for the kids to use–though it’s a shame Char ended up once again sleeping through dinner.

La Locanda and Summer Pavilion are connected restaurants. The manager in charge of both restaurants stopped by to chat with us. He recalled us from our first night where both kids were asleep and naturally it was quite the talking point that Char was once again sleeping through dinner. Unfortunately, while we were chatting with the manager, the weather turned for the worse. There was heavy rain and high-speed winds whipping through the restaurant and eventually we needed to seek temporary shelter in the indoor dining section of La Locanda.

Arabesque

We were hopeful of trying out Arabesque, a Lebanese/Indian restaurant found on a neighboring island, but after the rain storm that hit while we were at Summer Pavilion, we chose not to risk getting stranded on another island. The weather ended up being fine, but hindsight is always 20/20. The main takeaway here is there are several other dining options at the Ritz’s sister property Patina. However, if the weather is poor enough, the ferry connecting the islands will not run and guests may be stranded for a bit until the weather allows ships to operate.

In-Room Dining

We ended up dining in-room a few times during our stay. While it might seem like the lazy option at other hotels, here it helped us appreciate the villa a bit more and ended up being a peaceful respite. I honestly wouldn’t have minded eating more meals here. And yes, the cheap kids meals can be ordered here as well with the same selection found elsewhere. Food arrived promptly within half an hour and delivered by friendly staff members.

Overall I’d say we didn’t have a bad meal here at the Ritz Maldives and we were happy with the choices available to us. It would have been nice to visit another island for more options, but since we switched around to different restaurants each night, we didn’t get tired of the dinner options. It would have been nice if another option or two were available for lunch, but that’s about the only modestly negative comment I can make about the dining here.