Mandapa, A Ritz-Carlton Reserve - Ubud, Bali

Located just a 10-minute drive from downtown Ubud, Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve is a secluded paradise, where lush, rolling hills, the Ayung River and verdant rice paddies create a unique sense of place, where nature and luxury merge as one. Hitchbird sat down with Ana Henriques to find out more about weddings at the hotel.

Tell us about weddings at Mandapa

We don’t have a chapel and we know that lot of markets want to have a place. Normally we do our weddings all down by the river with beautiful set up. We have a 3-bedroom villa which is also amazing to the weddings, which seats up to 60-80 people. We have our beautiful lawn down but all of that needs backup. For the lawn, the guest will need to put up a tent or marquee.

The space across our beautiful lawn is the Guest Pavilion. If we put glasses all around without frames, it will be very nice to do beautiful weddings with the magnificent view. We have beautiful outdoor spots but we always need backup as the weather is not stable.

What is the challenge of having weddings at Mandapa?

We want to do more weddings and we have potential to do many more but we want the hotel still to have its core business. We want to explore all the possibilities that allow us without disturbing the hotel guests (not the wedding guests). Things like music, if you have a wedding with let say 20 rooms, may be 60 people, if they want music, we will have to finish the music at 10 or 11pm.

We can also do buy-out. It needs to be ideally 4 nights but 3 minimum. There are 35 suites and 25 villas (over 126 people). We recently had a buy-out for a wedding. It was a big wedding celebration for an advertising and communication client from Singapore. We have also hosted many destination weddings for international clients from China and Australia.

We have private weddings with couple only as well. For the hotel, the preferred wedding size is 20-60 people so we can still have a back-up plan for the weather and still don’t border the hotel guests too much.

Will 2017 a better year for weddings?

Again, we just opened end of 2015, we had 6 to 7 weddings last year. This year we already have some confirmed, but not exponential. We have a lady in charge of weddings and events on-site primarily focus on planning and organization. We just hire a sale manager based in Jakarta on domestic market. Indonesian weddings are very big. He can still manage nearby country like Singapore. We also did a few wedding shows with Ritz-Carlton Pacific Place.

Let’s talk about the cuisine at Mandapa

We have two restaurants. One is Sawah Terrace which is our all-day-dining restaurant serving Balinese, Indonesian, Asian and fusion cuisine. A little bit international but the core is Indonesian with Asian Twist. And then we have Kubu that is our fine dining restaurant, by the river and just open at night, all in bamboo structure serving Mediterranean-European cuisine. Both chefs are Indonesian even though the executive chef is from Italy and used to be in Bali for 6 years at Bulgari. He prepares this team and the chef at Kubu used to be in this team already at Il Ristorante at Bulgari. For the weddings, we can do anything from more local Asian fusion or Kubu menu or international menu. We can do a mix or go for international but with a very nice modern twist and favour.

The chef that we have in Kubu just won the Gold Medal Award in Jakarta and he had won a lot of competitions already. Kubu has been Number one on Tripadvisor since December 2016 - Number one in Bali and Number one in Ubud.

What makes a Ritz-Carlton Reserve different from a typical Ritz-Carlton hotel?

After Phulay Bay Krabi, Thailand and Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico, Mandapa is the third in the Ritz-Carlton Reserve collection. We are more of a boutique resort with less than 100 rooms. We do not use any Ritz-Carlton logo. We have our own logo and Mandapa means temple in Sanskrit. Every single Ritz-Carlton Reserve has its own characteristic and the culture of the place is the theme of the hotel.

In Mandapa, we try to replicate a Balinese village with modern elements and Ritz-Carlton services. The hotel is designed around four key elements: the water (the Ayung river), the school (Mandapa has a kid club with a wide range of natural wonders that a typical village kid will experience), the temples (2 on-site temples at Mandapa) and the working rice fields.

There is no hotel reception. Rather, we have butler or patih (in Indonesian language, it means royal family trusted person) building close relationships and creating special experiences for the guests. They will do extra miles to ensure that all of the guest needs are met. It is all about “What can we do?”. There was a family and the son suddenly loved watermelon ice-cream but we didn’t have it. The family only stayed with us for 2 days. The butler bought the watermelon popsicle from outside, right before they checked out, and put it in the ice box so the kid can have it on the way to the airport.

Ritz-Carlton is a legendary brand famous for its high level of luxury and service. Mandapa is no different. Imagine exchanging your vows in this prestigious location, with the never-ending bubbling thrum of the rolling river water, the magnificent view of lush green rainforest and the heaven-like tranquillity of the natural surroundings. This is incredibly magical. A perfect place for a once-in-a-lifetime celebration.

Click here to find out more about Mandapa, A Ritz-Carlton Reserve