Soneva Jani

The lagoon came first. Medhufaru sits inside a stretch of turquoise water more than five kilometres long, shared with four uninhabited islands, and it was that expanse of shallow sea that persuaded Sonu and Eva Shivdasani to build their second Maldivian resort here. Soneva Jani opened in Noonu Atoll in October 2016, twenty-one years after Soneva Fushi, and took the barefoot rules of the older house out over the water.

History

Soneva, the company the Shivdasanis kept after selling Six Senses in 2012, had one resort in the Maldives and one in Thailand when work began on Medhufaru. The first phase, later called Chapter One, opened in 2016 with a line of over-water villas along a wooden walkway reaching out across the lagoon and a handful of villas on the island itself. Chapter Two, a second cluster of over-water villas with its own restaurants, opened in 2021 and roughly doubled the resort. The name Jani means wisdom in Sanskrit, a nod to the owners' Indian roots.

Architecture and design

The villas are the point. Each is a timber house on stilts with a long deck, a private pool and, in most, a slide curving from the upper floor straight into the lagoon. Above the master bedroom the roof retracts at the touch of a button so that the bed lies open to the night sky. Eva Shivdasani's interiors use pale wood, woven fibres and hand-blown glass from the Soneva studio, with bathrooms that open onto the water. The Gathering, a cluster of over-water pavilions at the end of the main walkway, holds the restaurants, the library, the spa and an observatory with a research telescope. Cinema Paradiso floats on the lagoon; films are watched with wireless headphones so that the sound does not carry over the water.

Rooms and suites

The over-water villas run from one to four bedrooms, the largest with their own gyms, steam rooms and several pools. The island villas stand on the beach of Medhufaru among the trees, with the lagoon on one side and the jungle on the other, for guests who prefer sand under the deck. Every villa has a dedicated Mr or Ms Friday, the Soneva butler, and a pair of bicycles for the walkways. Chapter Two added larger family villas and a quieter stretch of water further from the arrival jetty.

Dining

So Primitive cooks over open fires and in earth ovens on the beach, with no electric appliances at all. So Wild serves a plant-based menu in the island's vegetable garden. The Gathering houses several kitchens, including a teppanyaki counter and a bakery, and the chocolate and ice-cream rooms that Soneva makes complimentary at every resort are here too. Chapter Two brought its own restaurants, among them a seafood shack on the sand. The wine cellar is stocked for long dinners and the sommeliers run pairings on request.

Wellness

Soneva Soul, the wellness programme the group launched in 2021, operates from treatment rooms over the water at The Gathering. Guests can combine Ayurveda, yoga and conventional diagnostics with visiting practitioners who stay for weeks at a time. The observatory runs stargazing sessions after dinner.

Weddings and events

Weddings at Soneva Jani are blessing ceremonies, usually on a sandbank in the lagoon or on the beach of Medhufaru, since the Maldives does not register foreign marriages. Private groups book the four-bedroom villas or a run of neighbouring villas along one walkway. There are no dedicated meeting rooms; Cinema Paradiso and the library at The Gathering serve for presentations when a company takes over part of the resort.

Location

Medhufaru lies in Noonu Atoll in the north of the Maldives, around 40 minutes by seaplane from Velana International Airport at Malé. A domestic flight to Maafaru, the atoll's airport, followed by a speedboat is the alternative in poor flying weather. The lagoon is shallow enough to wade far from the villas, and the house reef drops away beyond its edge. For a luxury resort on a Maldivian island, the sense of space is the rarest thing it offers.