The Chedi Muscat

The Chedi Muscat is a lesson in how much a hotel can do with restraint. Jean-Michel Gathy laid out 21 acres of garden on Muscat’s shoreline as a sequence of courtyards, arches and reflecting pools, Omani in its geometry and Asian in its calm, with the pavilions kept deliberately low.

Water is the medium. The Long Pool runs for 103 metres towards the sea, reserved for guests of 16 and over; the Serai Pool, among the gardens, takes everyone; the Chedi Pool meets the private beach, 383 metres of it. Six restaurants and lounges run from seafood by the shore to Japanese-inspired plates beside the Long Pool, and a Balinese spa completes the argument. It is one of the most composed addresses in the Gulf, and it does not raise its voice.

Arches, water and shadow

Gathy’s plan reads like a piece of music: arch, courtyard, pool, arch again, each frame opening onto the next, with the sea as the resolution at the end. The references are Omani, the discipline is Asian, and the materials are kept to a few, stone, water and palm, so that light and shadow become the decoration. A walk from the room to the beach passes through half a dozen of these compositions. On 21 acres of garden the buildings are low and the sky is large, and the hotel’s quiet is architectural rather than enforced.

Club rooms and suite villas

The accommodation continues the language of the gardens. Deluxe Club Rooms are the entry point, and the Chedi Club Suites and the Chedi Club Suite Villa take the same restraint to a larger scale. Interiors are cool, pale and uncluttered, and the outlook runs to garden, mountain or sea; the mountain category is the one people forget to ask for. Whatever the choice, the room is a place of shade and stillness between the pools, which in Muscat, in summer, is worth more than any number of square metres.

Three pools and a private beach

The Long Pool is the signature: 103 metres running towards the sea between lines of palms, kept for guests of 16 and above and served by its own dining area. The Serai Pool welcomes all ages, and the Chedi Pool sits on the beachfront with cabanas and an infinity edge. The private beach runs for 383 metres, and two flood-lit clay tennis courts fill the cooler hours. Of the six restaurants and lounges, the seafood by the shore and the Japanese-inspired plates beside the Long Pool are the evenings’ natural centre; the Balinese spa takes the afternoons.