Rice Boat

Rice Boat is the signature seafood restaurant of the Taj Malabar Resort & Spa, set on the tip of Willingdon Island at the mouth of Cochin's natural harbour. The dining room is built around a docked replica Kerala kettuvallam (rice boat), with carved teak panelling, brass lamps and a sequence of bay-window tables that catch the working harbour and the Fort Kochi skyline at the same view. The position is among the most cinematic of any hotel restaurant on the Malabar coast.

The cooking is coastal Kerala built on a single, careful brief: line-caught Arabian Sea fish (seer, kingfish, pomfret, prawns, lobster, the regional crab), the temple-vegetarian and Syrian Christian household kitchen, and a strict Kerala spice frame (curry leaf, mustard seed, fenugreek, fresh coconut, black pepper from the Idukki plantations). Signature plates include the karimeen (Kerala pearlspot) pollichathu wrapped in banana leaf, the meen pollichatthu seer fish, the Kochi prawn moilee in coconut milk, the Syrian Christian beef ularthiyathu, and the appam with stew that closes the meal in the older Kerala order.

The wine and spirits programme is the Taj group standard — a confident international list with strong New World whites and Champagne, plus a serious single-malt programme that Indian luxury diners expect. Toddy and arrack — the regional palm liquor — are offered at the harbour-mouth bar before dinner. Coffee is Coorg estate-grown and is the closing dignity of the meal.

Service is run at the Taj's most polished register: half a dozen staff trained over years on the Kerala menu and the regional pairing. English is fluent throughout; Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and Arabic are handled at the principal posts. For a proposal sunset dinner in Cochin, the kettuvallam window-table booking is the answer, and the room rises to that brief without theatre.

Rice Boat is the proposal restaurant in Cochin. The dining room is built inside a docked replica Kerala kettuvallam (rice boat), the harbour-mouth setting at the Taj Malabar's tip of Willingdon Island catches the Arabian Sea sunset over the Fort Kochi skyline, and the Kerala seafood menu is the most considered version of the regional cuisine in any luxury hotel in the south. The combination of ambience, occasion and food makes a once-in-a-lifetime dinner.