Mango House Seychelles, LXR Hotels & Resorts

Gian Paolo Barbieri's front doors are still at Mango House, though these days they are a sculpture. The Italian fashion photographer bought a house on Anse aux Poules Bleues, a small bay on Mahé's south-west coast, in the 1970s, and named it after the white mango tree in his kitchen garden. Rising seas damaged the house. JT+Partners built a new one on the same spot, open as a hotel since 2021, with the tree, now about 150 years old, at its centre. The tree kept its place; the doors had to change jobs. The arrival pavilion's ceiling of bwason wood sticks is modelled on the ceilings of his house, and the 41 rooms and suites follow the curve of the bay in local granite and nalau wood, with pale Lebanese stone in the bathrooms. Golf carts do the walking between them.

Recommended for couples who like a hotel with a past, and for families, whose children get the Mango Pips programme: a breakfast of their own and a first go at diving. A large family should look at the Three Bedroom Bay House, which has its own plunge pool. Of the four restaurants, book Moutya, which grills Creole dishes over coconut-shell charcoal. The hotel's own beach is small, so for more sand Anse Soleil is four minutes' drive and Anse Takamaka seven. The best of the bay is under the water anyway: the reef the hotel calls, without modesty, its Aquarium of Wonders starts off that small beach, and the kayaks and snorkels to reach it are included. Anyone who would rather stay dry can take the glass-bottomed boat and look down through the floor.