Room for Two – Hidden Hills Villas, Bali

BY MATT BRACE

Intro

Imagine a romantic California beach house transported to a tranquil hillside in Bali, filled with linen-draped four-poster beds and decorated with tropical motifs and private pools. Now add a fabulous open-air restaurant and world-class wine lounge, friendly staff and views to die for. That is Hidden Hills Villas and it should definitely be on your romantic Bali radar.

Overview

If Bali’s big chain hotels and ‘look-at-me’ properties are the Hollywood blockbusters, Hidden Hills Villas is the perfectly produced art film, the one that becomes an underground classic that you want to watch again and again. It’s discreet, low-key and very chic. No surprise it’s a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Check in and escape.

Location

In Uluwatu, about an hour’s drive to the airport and a short hop to the glorious south coast beaches, including hip new hangout Bingin.

Look and feel

The exquisite villas step up the hillside, each one inhabiting its own private grounds with lawns, frangipani trees and bougainvillea hedges. They are very private and beautifully designed and decorated. Attention to detail is everywhere: in the style and colour of the furniture pieces, in the art works, the colour themes (unique to each villa), the landscape design of the grounds and even the music playlists. Owner Max Loong and his team lovingly maintain the legacy of the property’s original designer, Max’s mum Beatrice. The villas are connected by stone walkways that lead to the entrance area, the spa (in a cute little villa of its own) and the alfresco Hidden Gem Restaurant & Wine Lounge. Hidden Gem follows the California–meets–Bali vibe, with poolside chairs and tables that are more Palm Springs than Bali but fit nicely here.

Service

The Hidden Hills staff are delightful, from the drivers to the waiters to the maintenance team. Some Hidden Gem food and beverage team members have their international WSET qualifications (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) while the others are getting close to qualifying.

Best room for two

There are 14 landscaped, stand-alone villas (from one to five bedrooms) and seven studio villas, which are also lovely but smaller and without pools. We were in Villa Seychelles, one of the two-bedroom ones (Villa Bali is the other). This is probably the best category to pick for a romantic stay. It’s big (villa, pool and gardens total 447sqm), has an extra bedroom so you can keep your chosen boudoir clear of luggage, two outdoor bathrooms with bathtubs for romantic evening soaks, and a delightful pool right next to the front deck.

Lovely as the villa was, we spent almost all our time lounging outside on the deck, flopping languidly into the turquoise-tiled pool and gazing out over the bougainvillea hedge to the ocean horizon. In the evening swifts came skimming deftly over the pool and the hedge – beautiful things!

On rainy afternoons we chilled out on the black sofa and rattan armchair in the villa’s central lounge, or drew the white muslin drapes around our four-poster bed and indulged in a nap.

If you’re after a smaller studio villa then our pick is St Tropez, for the views and for the stunning décor: pastel shades offset by a feature wall of black-and-white stripes and multicoloured tropical birds. It’s chic and fun!

Food and drink

Hidden Gem Restaurant & Wine Lounge is the best place we have eaten in Bali in more than a decade. Tables are spaced around the main pool, with others under a shaded area nearer the bar. You can see all the way to the ocean and – on a clear day – even glimpse distant volcanos. Swiss chef Enzo produced some terrific dishes for us. We had delicious tuna tartare, then slow-cooked and flash-charred octopus with a rich carrot puree. The grilled mahi-mahi with Sumatran balado butter was another winner.

The owner Max was in-house and was able to explain his wines-by-the-glass concept. He is disrupting the long-held Bali-wide practice of having to buy an entire bottle to get anything better than supermarket plonk. He is serving 54 wines by the glass, many of them world-class. His prices are also more reasonable than many, as he is refusing to follow the trend here of slapping 300% or even 400% mark-ups on wine.

So, we sipped glasses of perfectly chilled Hugel Gewürztraminer, Diel Dorsheimer Goldloch Riesling and a thrilling Alta Mora Etna Rosso from Sicily.

The secret? Max is a certified sommelier and a WSET Level 4 Diploma holder, so he knows his wine and has vintner contacts worldwide. Also, his team use Coravin® devices, clever little things which pierce the cork and extract the wine through a tiny tube. The cork stays in place and the wine lasts for weeks. Delicious wine, zero waste and very happy customers.

Sustainability

A lot of the property was built using sustainable materials, including bamboo and recycled wood. It minimises single-use plastic by providing drinking water in reusable glass bottles and has banned plastic rubbish bags in favour of eco-friendly alternatives. Hidden Hills uses solar power, LED lighting and energy-efficient AC, and segregates waste and composts organic materials, which help the gardens flourish. It also employs staff from nearby villages and partners with local businesses, thereby contributing to the well-being of the community.

Couples will love

Absolutely everything about this place: waking in a beautiful villa to birdsong and stunning ocean views, luxuriating in a private pool after a luxurious spa treatment and dining in real style at the restaurant while sampling a truly world-class collection of wines by the glass.

Book via the hotel’s website: https://www.hiddenhillsvillas.com/, call/WhatsApp +62 819 9009 5665, or email booking@hiddenhillsvillas.com.