Odisha Has An 18th-Century Palace Turned Boutique Hotel Offering Scenic Views Of Chilika Lake & Colonial Elegance

Where Chilika Lake turns gold at sunset, a pale-pink colonial façade rises from the shore, and it’s called the Rambha Palace. Built in 1792, revived through a meticulous restoration, and transformed into a hotel, it now embodies a rare union of historical legacy and architectural elegance.

The Rambha Palace Reinvented

 

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Built in 1792 by British Collector Thomas Snodgrass and later claimed by the Khallikote royal family, this building has seen more than its share of history. Political meetings that shaped the idea of Odisha once echoed through its piano room. In the decades that followed, neglect almost silenced it! But that was true only until a meticulous six-year restoration by Sri Lankan architect Channa Daswatte, protégé of Geoffrey Bawa, coaxed this 200-year-old palace back to life as a boutique hotel.

And now, Venetian lime plaster gleams once more, Greek Doric columns stand unbowed, and Roman arches frame the long verandahs. Gardens, clipped and formal in the French style, draw the eye to Chilika’s shimmering expanse. The floors are terrazzo underfoot, Persian rugs soften the tread, and a full-size 18th-century billiards table still waits, as if a game was left mid-stroke.

No room is quite like another. Sixteen suites and a solitary Presidential Villa occupy what were once royal chambers, orchards, and even a printing press. The Villa keeps a private pool behind tall walls; the Palace Suites gaze directly over the lake’s wetlands, where 184 species of migratory birds wheel and dive. Four-poster beds wear crisp linen, and bathrooms are Italian marble with freestanding tubs angled to catch the light. Some walls carry Ikat and Kotpad weaves; others, Dhokra brass figurines, with each a deliberate choice to weave Odisha’s own craft into the colonial skeleton.

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Food, History and More

The dining experience sidesteps the tyranny of a printed menu. Instead, a team of sixteen chefs asks what you feel like eating, then makes it. Odia dishes have pride of place: kakharu phula bhaja, zucchini flowers fried crisp, arrives hot from the pan; pakhala bhat, the fermented rice that locals swear by in summer, is served with a dozen small accompaniments. The day’s catch from Chilika, like prawns, bhetki, and crab, might come in mustard gravy one evening and grilled with lime the next. If you wander off-script, they’ll follow!

Outdoors, vintage cars rest under canopies. The pool shimmers in the heat as a glorious counterpoint to the dark wood interiors. A butler can arrange a lake cruise to watch Irrawaddy dolphins or a long afternoon of nothing more than tea on the verandah, listening to the quiet.

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Rambha Palace isn’t just a place to vacay; it’s a restoration of memory, brick by brick and thread by thread. The lake changes every hour; the palace, somehow, keeps its poise.

Where: Estate, Tehsil, PS, Rambha, Khallikot, Odisha
Check-in time: 2 pm onwards

Cover Image Courtesy: rambhapalace/Instagram