Royal Heritage Haveli

This was a hunting lodge. The family’s guests came for deer and wild boar in the jungle along Queen’s Road, named for Queen Mary of England, who visited Jaipur around the Delhi Durbar of 1911 and drove out to see the animals in the family’s private sanctuary. The days were spent in the wilderness, the evenings inside these walls with food, drink and company. Maharaj Jai Singh, whose family owns the house, tells that story himself in his letter to guests.

What survives is small and personal: four suites, tranquil courtyards, expansive lawns, and Angelique and Pradip Singh keeping an eye on all of it. The frescoes are hand-painted, the marble floors and doors original.

Dining runs on the same principle. Breakfast comes to a sunlit veranda. Lunch and dinner are creative Indian and light continental, served in the inner courtyard with santoor and tabla playing, or in the fresco-covered dining room. Chef Prithvi Oli sources from Jaipur’s best wholesalers and the hotel’s own vegetable garden. Kigelia Court is the open-air table; Mehrab is the bar, for premium spirits and appetisers.

Lost Recipes is the one to book ahead. Not dishes pulled from old cookbooks to fit a theme, but ones cooked in this family for generations, papad chutney and naarangi maas among them, taught and prepared with you and then served as a four-course dinner, with a block-printed apron and printed recipe cards to take home.

The Frangipani Spa has lapis lazuli inlays around the doorways and a menu that runs from Ayurvedic massage with organic Kerala oils to Swedish massage. The pool is marble and sandstone, and temperature controlled.