The Malabar House

The Malabar House is a documented piece of Fort Cochin's past. Its record begins in 1755, when a Dutchman, Jan Herman Clausing, bought the property from Mathew Henrich Beyls. Spice traders, tea traders and bankers owned it in turn, and in 1997 it became Fort Cochin's first boutique heritage hotel. It sits on Parade Road opposite St Francis Church, three minutes on foot from the Chinese fishing nets, with the historic Parade Ground alongside.

The owners call it an art hotel as much as a heritage one. The collection is chosen to show Kerala as a passage between East and West: antiques and contemporary works, a spiral staircase rising past a yellow mural in Divine, painted textiles and carved stone in the rooms. Floors are stone, with no rugs. Walls run to deep red and turquoise, and beds are four-posters or carved wooden frames.

There are 17 rooms and suites, and because this is an old building no two are the same. Eleven Deluxe rooms are on the ground floor, six with double beds and five with twins, averaging 30 square metres; each opens to a terrace, a sit-out or its own patch of garden. Five Roof Garden Suites on the first floor average 54 square metres and have their own terraces over the patio garden or the Parade Ground. The Malabar Suite is a 90 square metre maisonette with a living room on the first floor and the bedroom, bathroom and private terrace above. Every room is centrally air-conditioned with a bathtub and shower, WiFi, safe, coffee maker and minibar. One room has easy wheelchair access.

Malabar Junction, the restaurant, cooks Keralan food with Mediterranean influences from local and where possible organic produce. Lunch runs 12.30 to 3pm and dinner 7 to 11pm, with meals also served in the garden by the pool. Divine, the wine lounge and tapas bar, opens 11am to 11pm and pours Indian wines by the glass with pairing menus. Every evening at 8pm, weather allowing, there is live Carnatic music or classical dance on the patio stage.

The courtyard pool measures 4m by 8m and 1.25m deep. Purespa, in the courtyard building, has two single massage rooms and one twin room for Ayurvedic oil massages, open 7am to 7.30pm. Yoga runs daily from 7.30 to 8.30am at the Cochin Club for a per-person fee, and bicycles are free for residents. The hotel is open 365 days a year and arranges airport transfers, about 45km and 90 minutes. Rates are not published on the hotel's site; we quote on enquiry.