HOTELS

Prince Maurice

Opened in 1998, this 5 star deluxe leisure hotel is the flagship of the Constance Hotels group. It has been built on a private peninsula, with its own lagoon and fishing lake or barachois, on the North East coast of the island. It is under the always refreshing influence of the trade winds, but protected from their direct blow.

Leaving the main road, you enter a tropical garden with luxuriant vegetation, which surrounds this isolated world of luxury and refinement. Reaching the main entrance, you stop to admire the refined elegance of the hotel architecture based on stone, wood and thatch. You then proceed to the reception, a marble paved hall with 4 fountains, wide open to the pool and the turquoise lagoon on the back.

The hotel, along the white sand lagoon beach, is organized like a small village. Around the main set of buildings with the restaurant, the bars, the pool, the shops and the library.

The hotel, features only luxury suites: 76 junior suites, 12 senior suite, and the Princely Suite, all furnished with an utmost refinement. A junior suite is a spacious 70 square meter room with a living corner and a bedroom area, a vast hedonistic bathroom with separate bath, shower, toilets and dressing, a balcony or a terrace where you can easily have breakfast or dinner. The senior suites are 130 square meter villas with a private swimming pool. The Princely Suite, set apart from the other buildings, is 380 square meters large, with 2 private pools. Each of them is fully equipped, with all the amenities you may need: air-conditioning, hair dryer, mini bar, TV with DVD reader, VCR, CD-ROM and cassette drives, safe vault and individual fax. They are scattered all over the resort, in small buildings of no more than 8 units each, so that you have the impression of being in your own private house.

For those willing to practice sports, all the activities they may desire are possible. Most of them are free; water skiing, windsurfing, kayaking, golfing, diving (magnificent in the clear waters of the Mauritian lagoons, with tropical fish), hobie cats, cruises, fly and deep sea fishing and glass bottomed boats… You may also wish to relax and enjoy one of the 4 splendid white sand beaches of the resort along the lagoon.
Coming with kids is no problem, which is not so frequent in Mauritius where many hotels are designed in priority for honeymooners or couples. The hotel offers a kid’s garden where they can be taken care of.

Besides the fully equipped fitness center, the Prince Maurice offers a beauty center designed and run in partnership with Guerlain, where expert aestheticians will
rejuvenate your body with a selection of sophisticated treatments.

While staying there, more than 250 people are at your service, making you feel that they are at your disposal, for you alone. They are all kind and efficient, always ready to bring you anything you need, even to the most remote area of the resort at the end of the beach! Several times a day they will come to your room and bring you refreshments, snacks, chocolates, fruit, cocktails and juices, just for your pleasure. Everything that would appear to be a privilege anywhere else seems here to be completely natural.

This palace is also one of the best tables in Mauritius, worth a few stars on any guide. Under the supervision of Benoit Pepin, the Corporate Chef of the Constance Group, each of the restaurants of the different resorts offers an inventive cuisine of its own. Before coming to Mauritius, Benoit spent most of his career in the USA, where for over 10 years he learned to invent and combine different cooking styles. He went to Santa Anna near Los Angeles, then moved to Santa Barbara. He then spent 5 years in the Caribbean. He has now been in Mauritius for 5 years. He is always in search of new concepts or new alliances to offer new experiences to his guests. His next challenge is the new restaurant, to be opened in the Belle Mare resort. It will be an open buffet with 7 different pavilions, each one offering its own cuisine, including Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Mauritius, French, and each one operating with its own team, resources and menu. Most important to him is the training of the young cooks whom the group constantly hires. Benoit set up an internal cooking school to train them and bring them all to the high quality standards of the group. From time to time, he takes them out to visit and try the competitors restaurants on the island.

Bourgeois with Crustacean Sauce

The chef of the Prince Maurice is Jacques Ledu, who manages a team of 46 people in the kitchen. He joined the group after an international career, which led him 8 years in England to such places as the Ritz or the Park in London. He shares with Benoit the same taste for inventiveness and fun in cooking. “People don’t come to Mauritius to eat a Béarnaise sauce!” he says. He is indeed always trying new products, which are first served during theme dinners, and then, if the clients like them, are kept to become part of the main menu.

There are 2 restaurants in the Prince Maurice: the Archipel, the main one, overlooking the pool and the beach and serving gourmet food, and the Barachois, a floating restaurant offering a great view of the mountains with splendid sunsets and serving mostly seafood and grills.

I had the pleasure of trying some of the specialties of the house and it is still a great memory! I remember having a goat cheese with Espelette red pepper and balsamic vinegar, panned scallops on a bed of mashed sweet potatoes with a wasabi sauce, a delicious vegetable won ton in a cocoa and poultry broth with a red pepper sauce, in which you can see the team’s firm mastering of spice use, a fillet of bourgeois (a local fish coming from the Seychelles Islands, of the red snapper family, with a more delicate taste) with a crustacean sauce (a delightful sauce made from a lobster, crab, sea urchin broth) with oriental style vegetable, and for dessert a chocolate mousse and soft cake with a cocoa sherbet.

The sommelier is Géraldine Estienne, who joined the Prince Maurice 2 years ago, after graduating from the National Wine University in Suze la Rousse, France. She personally tastes and selects the wines for the restaurants and bars.

The Barachois Sommelier Geraldine Estienne of Prince Maurice Chef Jacques Ledu of Prince Maurice

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She designed a superb wine list, with about 130 wines coming mostly from France (2/3 of them), but also from the rest of the world, South Africa, Australia, Italy, Spain, Chili and even California (Wente). It might appear as a short list, but in each region, you will find wines that are typical of the appellation, in order to suit all tastes and to match any meal. She is also in charge of the 2 bars: the Lounge Bar, next to the restaurant and the Laguna Bar, overlooking the pool and the beach. You will be able to enjoy some of the house specials and the “Improved Rums,” where local fruit and spices give the local rums all these subtle aromas tastes and scents.

The Prince Maurice is a member of the Relais & Châteaux organization, in the outstanding category.

Rates: between $300 and $1200 per day per person, depending on the season and the type of accommodation.