The turquoise pyramid roofs are the first thing to fix in the eye — punctuating the clifftop above Saint-Leu on Réunion's western coast like a signal visible from the water below. Blue Margouillat Seaview Hotel takes its visual identity from this repeated motif: white-painted pavilion structures crowned with the same vivid teal metal, a gesture that draws simultaneously from Indo-Pacific colonial architecture and the vernacular of the island's Creole plantation houses, their decorative fretwork carved into the balcony balustrades and roofline friezes that frame every upper-floor terrace. The interiors sustain the same layered inheritance. Guest rooms are finished in terracotta floor tiles and warm timber, ceiling fans turning slowly above beds dressed in pale linen, with French doors opening onto private balconies where the Indian Ocean fills the entire horizon. Dark-stained colonial furniture — carved armchairs in brown leather, pedestal side tables, gilded mirror frames — sits alongside woven cord seating and simple rattan, the mix achieving the atmosphere of a well-composed private house rather than a managed resort. The open-sided restaurant, its coffered white ceiling carried on slender columns, dissolves at the edges into the pool terrace and the sky beyond, where at dusk the ocean turns to copper and the property's small scale — fewer than twenty rooms across two low-rise wings — becomes its clearest advantage.

1hr drive from Saint-Denis airport (RUN)

The hotel is a cosy and peaceful Creole mansion, over the Indian Ocean’s immensity and under its refreshing “Alizés”, entirely organised for rest, serenity and pleasure of the five senses.It is also a modern art gallery, presenting abstract painting, sculptures and potteries from local and European artists.