Low-Key Luxury In Goa: This Hotel Is A Haven In India’s Party Capital

Sometimes—actually, my favorite times—an intimate historic hotel turns out to be far more than the sum of its parts. Ahilya by the Sea, on the northwestern coast of Goa, offers one of those times.

The Relais & Châteaux hotel is the antidote to the Goa of guidebooks—the all-inclusive resorts, the boisterous beach clubs, the all-night raves. India’s anything-goes party destination feels light-years away. Instead, very little goes here, and it goes very slowly. Ahilya by the Sea is a sun-dusted sanctuary of slow living, a ten-room bolt-hole surrounded by gardens beside one of the last fishing beaches in this part of the Arabian Sea.

The hotel, a sister property to the regal Ahilya Fort in Central India, is a place for restful days, reading on the veranda, and allowing yourself to get lost in the views in the distance or the eccentric details in front of you. It’s a place with rich history and personal stories, home to quiet luxury and Indian tradition, and also a place out of time. It is very well-suited for doing nothing in particular.

Although the residential-style buildings themselves are just 15 years old (much like those in another tiny Relais & Châteaux hotel in another corner of India), they’re built on the site of the former Portuguese customs houses and have views of the sea entrance to Old Goa. The villas are made of hand-hewn local red laterite rock, and they’re filled with objects—European and Goan, religious and inspired by nature, purely decorative or beautifully functional. The sleeper-hit room occupies a tower that’s intertwined with a 200-year-old banyan tree.

Among them are paintings by Antonio Xavier Trindade—known as the “Rembrandt of the East”—who was the grandfather of the present owner. That artistic legacy lives on, particularly in details like woven-cane rocking chairs with emerald-green cushions, colorful Portuguese tiles and a wood carving that resembles a camel on a skateboard.

The rooms are also named for Trindade’s paintings, with the biggest room of the hotel, the primary bedroom in the Leela Villa, named for the artist himself. Other rooms, in the simply but correct called Sunrise and Sunset Villas, have evocative names like Sanyasi—for a bedroom with French windows that open onto a balcony stretching the length of the sea-facing walls—and Barcos, the Portuguese word for “boats,” chosen because the room has views of the fishermen’s beach, along with East African tribal art and antique Goan furnishings.

Although it’s listed on the website as almost an afterthought to the rooms in the main villas, a standout accommodation is Arjun’s Tree House, on the second floor of that building in a symbiotic relationship with the banyan. It’s described as having “cozy proportions” that suit a solo traveler, but it’s plenty spacious and romantic to boot—whether your idea of romance involves a quiet writers’ studio or a serene aerie for a couple’s getaway.

Besides, Ahilya is the sort of place that encourages guests to linger in the common areas. Within the gardens, there are two swimming pools, one of which is right next to the sea wall. The villas have shaded verandas and artifact-filled living rooms that are meant to be shared, whether that’s alone with a book or lost in your thoughts, or with a companion or few at a dining table.

There’s no restaurant per se, so meals are served around the property. The food is so market-driven and fresh that each day’s dishes are written on a chalkboard menu beside the bar cart. That might mean a Goan omelet with onions and chilis next to a swimming pool in the morning, an international-style salad beneath the shade of a veranda in the afternoon, or a set menu served by candlelight on the lawn (or in the indoor dining room if the weather is weird). A highlight is the local coconut curry with fish or prawns, paired with a properly spicy pickle—a dash of the piquant amid all that tranquility.

Like everything about Ahilya by the Sea, it’s not particularly fancy. But it’s made with attention and care, and presented with genuine hospitality. Nothing is rushed, and nothing demands all that much concentration. The pleasures here are simple: nature, calm, langour and, especially, ease.