Ithaa Undersea Restaurant sits 16 feet below sea level at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, a hotel resort in Hilton's luxury brand that occupies two islands. Maldives is a country of almost 1,200 islands about 300 miles from the southernmost points of India and Sri Lanka.
Diners eat in an acrylic-encased room 16 feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean. The cuisine at Ithaa, which means "pearl," is described as fusion Maldivian. A sample dinner menu is: reef fish with grape, almond and saffron reduction with green pea mille-feuille, and for desert, stuffed coconut pancake. The restaurant seats about 12.
The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner daily from 11 a.m. to midnight, according to the resort's website. The hotel recommends making reservations up to 14 days in advance at the restaurant, a great place for cocktails while watching reef and marine life above. The hotel recommends making reservations at least three weeks in advance. Expect to pay about $150 per person for lunch and $320 per person for dinner.
The resort on Rangali Island includes 50 water villas, 79 beach villas and 21 spa water villas. To get to Rangali, part of the South Ari Atoll, visitors take a 30-minute seaplane flight from Male, the capital of the Maldives.
The two islands on which the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resort is situated are linked by a walkway. The country is made up of 1,190 coral islands, of which only about 200 are inhabited and 80 are tourist resorts, according to CIA's World Factbook.
