Fateh Niwas

Every room with a balcony or a terrace, and a rooftop restaurant the group itself brands the Lake View Roof Top. Fateh Niwas is the Fateh Collection's haveli-style hotel at Rampura Circle on Sisarma Road, and it makes a plainer, more likeable promise than its palace siblings: a heritage building where the view does the decorating.

Rooms built around their balconies

There are three categories, all within a whisker of each other in size. Deluxe and Superior Rooms both run 400 sq ft with a private balcony over the city; the 430 sq ft Terrace Room swaps the balcony for its own sit-out. All sleep up to three. The hotel says every room gets a city panorama, and claims sightlines towards the City Palace, Jagmandir, the Monsoon Palace and Lake Pichola against the Aravallis; we have not stood on those balconies ourselves, so treat the named landmarks as the hotel's promise rather than ours. Inside, the aesthetic follows the collection's signature Rajasthani heritage style, with a spa, bar, swimming pool and a 1,200 sq ft conference hall alongside.

Enticing panoramas of the City Palace, Jagmandir, Monsoon Palace and Lake Pichola

The rooftop is the point

Two multi-cuisine restaurants split the eating between a lobby room and the rooftop, and the rooftop is clearly where the hotel's heart is: open air, city below, and a 15 per cent food discount here is what the group dangles at guests of its other properties. Practicalities are easy enough, with the railway station about 9 km away and the airport 28 km, roughly 50 minutes. Sister-property perks apply for direct bookers, including a free run of the vintage car museum. Our honest reading: this is the collection's simplest Udaipur address, and if you would rather spend evenings on a roof looking at the city than beside a banqueting lawn, it may be the one to pick.