Bulgari Resort Bali

The southern tip of Bali is a limestone plateau called the Bukit, dry where the rest of the island is wet, with cliffs dropping into the surf that made Uluwatu famous among surfers in the 1970s. Bulgari Resort Bali, Uluwatu, stands on the edge of that plateau, 150 metres above the water, and was the collection's second hotel and its first resort.

History

Two years after Milan, Bulgari and Marriott opened the Bali resort in September 2006. The site, near the temple of Pura Luhur Uluwatu, had the drama Milan lacked: a cliff, a private cove and the sunset over the Indian Ocean. Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel designed it with Balinese builders and craftsmen, using local volcanic stone, thatch and carved timber alongside the house's Italian furniture. Five large mansions were added to the original villas in later years for families and groups. In 2017 Luca Fantin, the chef of Bulgari's restaurant in Tokyo, took over the resort's Italian restaurant, which became Il Ristorante Luca Fantin.

Architecture and design

The resort is laid out as a village of walled compounds along the cliff, each villa behind its own gate with a courtyard, a plunge pool and a thatched pavilion. The materials are Balinese, the lines are Citterio's: low, straight and dark against the green. The public buildings sit at the cliff edge with the main pool cantilevered over the drop. An inclined lift runs down the cliff face to a private beach club on the cove below, which is the only way down apart from the surf.

Rooms and suites

There are 59 villas, each with a private pool and a view of the ocean or the gardens, with one or two bedrooms, and five mansions of three to five bedrooms with their own staff, larger pools and dining pavilions. The facts file lists 121 rooms, which counts bedrooms rather than keys; the resort markets 59 villas and the mansions.

Dining

Il Ristorante Luca Fantin serves the chef's Italian tasting menus with Japanese precision, carried over from his Tokyo kitchen. Sangkar is the Indonesian restaurant, with Balinese and Javanese dishes cooked in the open kitchen and views across the cliff. La Spiaggia, the beach club at the foot of the lift, serves lunch and grills on the sand. The Bulgari Bar at the cliff edge is the sunset address.

Wellness

The Bulgari Spa has treatment pavilions in the gardens with Balinese therapists, a hammam, a sauna, a fitness centre and a yoga pavilion facing the sea. The main pool at the cliff edge is for all guests; each villa has its own.

Weddings and events

The cliff-edge lawn and the beach are the wedding venues, with ceremonies at sunset over the ocean and dinners in the gardens or at the beach club. The mansions take families and wedding parties together, and the resort hosts destination weddings from Australia, Singapore, Japan and Europe. Meetings use the restaurants' private rooms and the mansions rather than a conference centre.

Location

Uluwatu is at the southern end of the Bukit peninsula, about 30 kilometres and 45 minutes by car from Ngurah Rai International Airport at Denpasar. The temple of Uluwatu and its kecak dance performances are a short drive away, as are the surf breaks of Uluwatu and Padang Padang. Among the resorts on the island it is the one with the highest cliff and the longest drop to its beach.