Malabar Hill

Set on a former cinnamon plantation, the estate keeps to a small part of its land and lets the rest grow back into forest. Built by local craftsmen from local materials, it stays car-free but for electric tuk-tuks, heats its water with solar, and runs a community programme that hires most of its team locally and gives residents seeds and soil, then buys back what they grow. It was awarded One MICHELIN Key in 2025.

The villas are open, contemporary spaces with floor-to-ceiling glass, a private salt-water plunge pool and a roof terrace facing the paddies or the sea. At the centre of the estate, a 35 m salt-water infinity pool overlooks the canopy, alongside the open-air Hill House Restaurant, a yoga pavilion, a library and a spa. The kitchen cooks Sri Lankan, Middle Eastern and pan-Asian dishes from the hillside garden and the day's catch, with floating breakfasts and a beach shack down at Mirissa. Bikes and electric tuk-tuks explore the cinnamon and rice country around it.

A 13-hectare former cinnamon estate on a hillside about 4 km inland from Weligama, one of the south coast's main surf bays, and a short tuk-tuk ride from Mirissa. Monkeys, mongooses and Sri Lanka grey hornbills move through the canopy, and the terraces look over rice paddies to the Indian Ocean.