5 hidden treasure boutique hotels of India

Go beyond the puppet shows and thali feasts of India’s tourist palaces seeking out another gentler and creative India with some of our favourite family-owned boutique properties below. From one of the grandest cities in India, now a faded beauty and nearly unknown, to a celebrity favourite deep in the depths of Rajasthan, India is scattered with lesser-known properties that are infused with stories of valour, vision and rooted in the soil of their setting. This is a journey through hotels created by love – with each one is utterly individual to itself, offering an experience not to be found anywhere else on earth.

1. Rajbari, West Bengal

A gentle 2.5 hours drive from Kolkata ‘City of Joy’, Rajbari is less a hotel and more of a discovery. Restored after decades of dilapidation by Kolkata resident Ajay Rawla, this early 19th-century merchant’s palace has one of the most breathtaking entrances in all of India. Built on a vast scale, the…