What a place! The service at Palais de Mahe was impeccable and friendly. Absolutely nothing was too much: rickshaw tour - not a problem, off menu meal for our 4 year old - of course, sundowners on the balcony outside of our room - not an issue, laundry - it will be done in a few hours, your shy daughter - we’ll win her over.

Our room (303) was cavernous even with a kids bed in. It had a seating area a great big bathroom and fab 4-poster.

The standard of food was excellent, we dined every breakfast and a couple of lunches and it did not disappoint with a pleasant mix of international and local options.

So what’s stopping me from giving the full marks. A rather frustrating building site next door, which:

1. Was the sound track to an otherwise perfect stay. It didn’t appear to work weekends, started late and finished early afternoon.

2. Required dust sheets above the pool area preventing the pool from being as bathed in sun as it could be. Furthermore the pool (unrelated to the building site) floor was quite damaged and didn’t really have enough sun beds (8 beds in total) to service the volume of guests.

All in all a fabulous stay and the staff couldn’t have been better but I won’t be rushing to rebook until the building work next door is complete.

An interesting, half-restored French Colonial hotel.

The staff were wonderful, helpful and cheerful.

Room was OK, though rather dark, except that we were eaten alive by mosquitoes during the night. (this seemed to happen to everyone on the ground floor, pool level.)

Food was nice, excellent chicken & mango curry for dinner. Breakfast was a bit more confused as most things needed to be ordered from the kitchen.

Overall, pleasant.

A boutique property right in the middle of the French Quarter. Nice pool. Decent food. Friendly. Big room. Has a good spa — not fancy but great treatments. If you seek a quiet, high end hotel in Pondicherry, this is your place. Starbucks is next door….