Soneva Fushi

On a private island in Baa Atoll, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Soneva Fushi was one of the first barefoot luxury resorts in the Maldives when it opened in 1995 and remains the property against which the concept is most consistently measured. The 63 villas are set among the island’s interior forest of mature tropical trees, with a density of natural vegetation that is unusual in the Maldivian resort landscape where many properties have replaced native forest with manicured gardens. The crushed coral pathways, the thatched roofs, and the aged wood of the villa structures have a patina of genuine age that gives Soneva Fushi a weight of character that newer properties, however ambitious, cannot manufacture. The island’s natural forest provides habitat for fruit bats, nesting birds, and a rich coastal ecology at the reef edge.

The dining programme at Soneva Fushi is one of the most substantive in the Maldives, with multiple restaurant concepts including the Mihiri Fresh in the Garden organic restaurant, Fresh restaurant’s wood-fired kitchen, Out of the Blue’s underwater perspective, and a dedicated wine cave whose collection would be remarkable in a city restaurant context. The Cinema Paradiso outdoor screening programme and the artist residency programme give the resort a cultural life unusual in the Maldivian market. The resort’s astronomers operate the island’s observatory on clear nights, and the diving programme covers the UNESCO-protected reefs of Baa Atoll including the Hanifaru Bay manta congregation, one of the largest in the world.

Soneva Fushi’s thirty-year history in the Maldives gives it a relationship with the islands that goes beyond any individual resort, with the Soneva Foundation’s work in waste management, clean energy, ocean conservation, and community development touching communities across multiple atolls and establishing standards that have influenced the regulation of the broader Maldivian tourism sector.