quotes from the media

“Like all Amans, it has great style and despite the daytime street noise, it’s an oasis of serenity.  It’s housed in French colonial buildings designed in a large rectangle with twenty-four one bedroom suites.  Many have private pools and all face the huge garden with a very pretty pool and terrace.”

“I’m trailing Amousith, a young chef at Amantaka, who names and describes fish and fowl, piles of roots and bunches of edible flowers. Around the corner at a riverside shack, open from 3 o’clock every morning, we join locals drinking coffee Lao style, brewed strong and served in glasses on top of a layer of condensed milk. A few hours later we meet on the outskirts of town in a kitchen pavilion set in a community farm. On one side is a waist-high rice paddy almost ready to harvest and all around are rows of vegetables growing organically. This is a cooking class, Aman style, which means the location and the food are superb, even if I’m the one banging the (clay) pots. Amousith and two sous chefs teach me some important Lao basics: how to stuff and correctly fold a banana-leaf parcel – with one hand – before steaming over charcoals; how to properly prepare the ubiquitous sticky rice; how to grate a green papaya with a knife. I eat my four courses slowly, in a pavilion beside a lily pond, perfectly happy in the moment.”

“Amantaka’s real triumph lies in how it has managed – in the two-and-a-bit years that it has been open – to blend itself into the community in a way that hotels the world over take generations to achieve. It would be fair to say that Amantaka has become for Luang Prabang what the Mandarin Oriental has for Bangkok, or the Peninsula for Hong Kong. It is now part of the fabric of the city.”

“The pride of Luang Prabang’s resort scene has emerged as the epitome of four-poster-bed Indochine luxury”

“Amantaka, where I stayed, is reason enough to come to Luang Prabang.  Most of its 24 suites hold private pools, and the amenities and service are on five-star levels by any standard.  The vibe though, was pure aristocrat-colonial: cold towels at the ready each time you returned to its confines; the staff as knowledgeable as they were pampering.”

“The architecture lends a colonial air and the romance of that era is punctuated by the elegant service Aman is legendary for. I was transported to a place infused with old world charm - and I don't mean Luang Prabang alone, but Amantaka too.”