Paradise Cove Boutique Hotel

The showers at Paradise Cove have two heads, and the hotel has named them You&Me. That is the brief for the whole place: 75 rooms at Anse La Raie, on the northern tip of Mauritius, none of them for more than two and nobody under 18. Every kind of room looks onto the cove, a narrow inlet of white sand and pale green water with a wooden boat at anchor in the middle and thatched pavilions on stilts at its edge. Inside it is white walls and rattan, and in the Prestige Junior Suites a canopy bed against a wallpaper of trees and leaves, with a bath beside the two showers. At the far end of the grounds, past love nests among the palm and latania trees, the Peninsula has the infinity pool, heated in winter, with loungers on a wooden deck facing the northern islands and a bar open until eleven.

Recommended for couples who want the north of the island within reach and good reasons to stay put. Cap Malheureux, the nearest fishing village, is 2.5 km by road, and boats leave from there to snorkel off Coin de Mire and Gabriel Island; Grand Baie is ten minutes' drive for a night out. At home the kayaks and the glass-bottom boat are included, and so is tennis coaching on two floodlit courts. Three of the four restaurants share a Dine-Around plan, contemporary Mauritian at The Dining Room and sushi at XO among them. The Cove keeps to itself, in a coconut grove between the main pool and the water. It is the seafood restaurant, and its five-course tasting menu, at extra charge, is vegan, so for one night the kitchen leaves the sea alone.