05 JUL 2018: Up until 1972, The Maldives was an archipelago peopled by fisher-folk eking out a living from fish and coconuts. Fast forward to 2018 and there’s Baros Maldives – named number one in Tripadvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Top 25 Luxury Hotels in the World. It’s a great testament to how far this country has developed over the past decades.

The Maldives consists of 1,192 coral islands covering about 90,000 square kilometres, about the size of Portugal, though the sea accounts for 99% of the territory. No island is more than two metres above sea level and only about 200 are inhabited. Population is around 430,000 spread out over 26 ring shaped atolls in the Indian Ocean.

Today the country is renown for its beaches, blue lagoons and extensive coral reefs teaming with colourful fish. The equator runs through the archipelago meaning a consistent year-round temperature of between 30 – 35 Celsius and everyday the sun rises at 6 am and sets at 6 pm. It’s no wonder once resort development started, it continued to blossom from that day forward.

The first tourist resort Kurumba, opened on the island of Vihamanaafushi in the North Male Atoll in 1972. Baros, which opened in December 1973, was the third and it remains owned by a Maldivian family company, Universal Enterprises to this day.

Jay Jihad, General Manager of Baros, told me that there are now 134 resorts in operation and 20 under construction each with their own island. Jihad said that each island is independent, almost like its own country, generating its own electricity, desalinating ocean water for its needs, and having its own sewage treatment plant. Baros was completely rebuilt in 2005 to keep up with the many international luxury brand resorts that have since arrived and continues to upgrade every year.

Tourism is now very much the economic driver of the country with over one million tourists visiting annually. Only about ten percent of income comes from fishing and agriculture. Arable land is scarce and agriculture is limited to only a few subsistence crops, such as coconut, banana, breadfruit, papayas, taro, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and onions. With such little choice in home-grown products, I had to wonder if there could be a rich culinary tradition here.

The Maldivian buffet night at Baros answered that question. It featured an incredible array of local dishes – no surprise that many of them featured fish especially tuna which is a staple here. Standing in front of a huge tuna, freshly fished that morning, were chefs ready to carve the meat into sushi and ceviche dishes. The appetiser station had tuna kabbe, bokika (fish cake) and bhajiya (tuna samosas).

Coconuts play a major role in Maldivian dishes and showed up on the buffet in grated form, as milk in sauces and as coconut oil used to fry foods. The salad station featured traditional dishes such as boshi mashuni (shredded banana flowers, fresh coconut and spices) and mas huni (shredded smoked fish with grated coconuts and onions) and barabo masuni (pumpkin and tuna).

Curries are also important dishes and for mains there was dhal, Maldivian devilled octopus, kukulhu riha (chicken curry) and massama (tuna roll curry). Among the deserts was screwpine (a fruit) made into ice cream and into a pudding. In all there had to be at least 50 different dishes.

The next day my husband and I signed up for a cooking lesson with Chef de Cuisine Ibrahim Nathif, a native of The Maldives. He demonstrated how to make mas riha (Maldivian fish curry) using freshly caught snapper. The spices were quite similar to those found in Indian curries: ginger, garlic, curry leaves, cardamom pods, turmeric, chili powder, cinnamon, cumin and cloves for example. However, Chef Nathif explained the difference is that in India they add the spices together, while the Maldivian cook adds them always one by one. Also, only coconut milk is used, never curds, yoghurt or ghee as in India.

While we were eating this delicious curry, Chef Nathif made Maldivian Banana Haluwa, based on his grandmother’s recipe. It was a simple tasty dish of sliced bananas fried in ghee and turmeric with sugar and cashew nuts folded in at the end.

Chef Nathif is in charge of The Lighthouse Restaurant, the fine dining spot on the island. That evening we enjoyed a French inspired menu with Chef’s unique Maldivian twists. We went for the seafood degustation dinner, which was five delicious courses of mollusc, crustacean, and fish dishes.

By our special request we started with the cognac flambéed lobster bisque. It was prepared tableside to great drama and taste. Then came seared sea scallops, followed by lobster Wellington baked in a saffron puff pastry with mushroom duxelles. The main was a signature dish that the Chef Nathif had developed: yellowfin tuna Rossini. It was grilled yellowfin tuna with pan-fried duck foie gras on top of it perched on a potato and parsley cake with truffle sautéed spinach. Dessert was exotic Asian fruits flambéed in rum and served with passion fruit ice cream.

The food at the resort certainly desired high accolades. As for the accommodation, was it the world’s best in luxury? All I can say is what’s not to love about a spacious beach villa with a plunge pool set amidst lush vegetation that gives complete privacy from neighbours as well as a private pathway to the beach where a warm ocean lies beckoning with colourful coral and fish. We were cast away in luxury and loving it.