Villa Shanti - Heritage Hotel for Foodies

The place has a very nice clean feel to it. With nice decor and some rustic and hip touches. It was great to have the restaurant downstairs. Breakfasts were simple and nice with great coffee. Loved the dinner menu. Lots of terrific dishes. Very well prepared. And the wait staff and servers especially warm and personable. Dharani was one of the standout waiters. ***** with the entire staff. The front desk were very kind and helpful. Loved the simple cool rooms. Great air conditioning and nice showers. There was no outside noise from the busy street. Well located and near the rock beach promenade.

This place is beautiful and clean. If that's all you care about, this is great place to stay. Otherwise, it's pretty mediocre even for India and definitely overpriced. It's been well marketed. The restaurant brags about having a chef from a Micheline star restaurant in France. Having been to micheline star restaurants, this isn't even close. In fact, of mid/high end Indian hotels the food is subpar. Perhaps I missed something on the menu but I did eat there like 6 times. The menu is affordable, and the food reflects that. You can definitely eat better elsewhere in Pondicherry. As for service, it needs a lot of work. Staff often seemed clueless. They would lie about things just to appease the customer. For instance, asked for a hotel sewing kit. They kept saying they would bring one instead of just saying, "no we don't have a sewing kit". Often no one picked up at reception. One day, we needed to leave early in the morning. They offered to pack breakfast. I called to confirm that 30 minutes in advance. Came downstairs and no body had prepared anything. Again, don't say you have services or make offers that can't be delivered on. I have other examples but this review is long enough. Also, the jr suites with balconies face a very noisy road, particularly on the weekend. Bring your earplugs. That said we had a couple of very nice female servers who were good a developing customer relationships, and again the place is pretty.

Excellent food, great service, superb value for money and terrific ambience. We went as a family of four. We got a great table and ambience is nice and open air. We ordered multiple dishes and each of those were excellent with interesting variations. Portion size are good. Definitely worth a visit.