The Taj West End, Bangalore

Find peace, quiet and heritage charm in the heart of India's frenetic Silicon Valley

Find peace, quiet and heritage charm in the heart of India's frenetic Silicon Valley

Bangalore is India’s most go-ahead city, a subcontinental Silicon Valley awash with techno parks and towering malls where IT wallahs rush about glued to their phones and iPods and all manner of ding-dong mobile technology. With a disembodied chorus of Hello-Moto ring tones battering my brain, I check into the Taj West End, where the most insistent sounds over the next three gloriously peaceful days will prove to be the snip-snip of a team of gardeners manicuring the 8ha emerald estate.

Opened in 1887 as a boarding house for a maximum of 10 respectable gentlemen by an Englishwoman, Mrs Bronson, this low-rise hotel, managed by the Taj group since 1984, defines the notion of urban oasis but with none of the self-consciousness of such a contemporary marketing label.

How much would 8ha be worth today in this most desirable of business cities? Downtown land is at such a premium that the new airport, which opened in May, is more than 40km north of the city’s techno-hub. But this one-time British garrison town continues to be referred to as the city of trees, and the Taj group, with multiple palaces and historic lodges in its portfolio, knows the value of preserving heritage accommodation.

Two-storey wings of rooms are scattered as satellites from the main building with its porticoed entrance, restaurants and bars. There are 91 guestrooms and 26 suites, all with private ground-floor terraces or covered balconies. (Tip: Be warned that the wings closest to Blue Bar, an open-air hotspot that has a live DJ to 11.30pm, are noisiest.)

A 1905-built Heritage Wing contains the most sumptuous of guestrooms, a colonnaded veranda of the tea-taking kind and a small but efficient business centre with a phalanx of computers. The guestrooms feature all the expected five-star amenities, including flat-screen TVs and fabulously big beds, plus extra details such as vases of roses and lilies, constantly replenished Molton Brown toiletries, 24-hour butler service and laundry that is returned with buttons tightened and pesky stains dispatched.

Located on Race Course Road, opposite the Turf Club and the favourite of passing punters, the hotel has long been a social nucleus for Bangalore’s well-heeled classes. The rollcall of guests past is a mix of prime ministers and corporate bigwigs, entertainers of the ilk of Sting and Aerosmith and many a disco-dancing Bollywood demigod.

But it’s the service at the Taj West End that is the stand-out attraction. I lose a small earring in the garden one evening and report it to the front desk with not much hope of its recovery. But it is returned to me at breakfast in a small silk bag on a silver tray. Recovered, I should have guessed, by an eagle-eyed gardener.

Everyone’s talking about The hotel’s new Masala Klub, a restaurant with a DIY stone-grill. It may not sound revolutionary but for India’s prosperous middle classes, used to brigades of servants doing all those dire kitchen tasks, it was a brave move to expect them to roll up their
sleeves and get grilling. But Masala Klub has worked a treat, even if, from my observation, it’s the waiters who do most of the cooking of, say, fish and prawns basted with pomegranate seeds. Taj has introduced similar concept eating at its properties in Delhi and Mumbai. Masala Klub, with its soft grey and caramel decor and glass lanterns strung in lines of dazzling colours, looks over Taj West End’s flourishing tropical gardens, with a 120-year-old tamarind tree as centrepiece. It’s
appropriate, therefore, to succumb to a wickedly good tamarind cream cocktail to wash down one’s Indian barbecue.

Eating Elsewhere in the hotel grounds, Blue Ginger, Bangalore’s only Vietnamese restaurant, sits in a garden pavilion by a water-hyacinth pond, twinkling with fairy lighting. Landscaping is by Australian designer Michael White (aka Made Wijaya of Bali resort garden fame) and there are beautiful water features to admire while scoffing the best ricepaper rolls and lotus-stem salad west of Saigon. At the Sunday champagne brunch (about $75 a head), Moet & Chandon flows freely – one of the city’s best bargains.

Hot tip Vijay Thiruvady, botanist and founder of the Bangalore Environment Trust, has an arrangement with Taj West End to take guests on tours of the hotel’s grounds. He conducts a gentle ramble across clipped lawns roamed by perky three-striped palm squirrels. We pause to admire a tamarind tree (its fruit the biting ingredient in HP and Worcestershire sauces) and progress past Assam rubber plants, Madagascan flamboyants with their spreading canopies and bright red blooms, fishtail palms and enormous rain trees. Thiruvady imparts plenty of history on the hotel as well but is a man of utter discretion. My pleas for him to confirm that the Presidential Suite, a cottage with a private courtyard pool, is presently occupied by Australian cricket deity Ricky Ponting (I am in Bangalore for the launch of the Indian Premier League series) are met with an enigmatic smile and a decoy dissertation on his memories of Dame Peggy Ashcroft staying at Taj West End while filming A Passage to India.

Essentials Rooms from 21,000 rupees (about $640), but check for seasonal deals. All rates include breakfast at Mynt, a groovy cafe with bay windows and views of pink and white frangipani trees. For more information, phone [phone] or visit tajhotels.com. For Bangalore touring packages with accommodation, see Abercrombie & Kent (abercrombiekent.com.au).

Susan Kurosawa is The Australian’s travel editor.