Eastern Mangroves: the latest arrival in the lap of luxury

The Life: The newest hotel in Abu Dhabi has an identity crisis to resolve.

Anantara's Eastern Mangroves is on Salam Street. Lee Hoagland / The National

For those with a lot of money to spend, luxurious rooms await with sweeping views of the mangroves and the shiny towers beyond.

For those on a budget, windows look on to the motorway.

Anantara's Eastern Mangroves is the latest arrival on the emirate's competitive hotel scene. It has the decor of a tasteful palace, but an unlikely location set along Salam Street. That creates something of an identity crisis.

On one hand it has the promise of a luxury resort much like the Qasr Al Sarab desert retreat or the tropical beach hideaways that made Anantara's name, including a complex of luxury residences and a small marina. But staff insist the hotel is a business hotel, thanks to its location and ammenities.

That dichotomy is not entirely the fault of Anantara, which operates the hotel for the Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC), the Government's master developer. Anantara took over the project after Banyan Tree, another luxury chain, pulled out last year.

For the past month the hotel has been in "soft opening", with just eight rooms out of 224 occupied on a recent night but with its food and beverage facilities fully operational .

The hotel is a pleasure, especially in how it evokes the UAE's heritage, which is also a strength of its smoothly running sister property Qasr Al Sarab. Four brass trays heaped high with dates decorate the lobby. As soon as you bite into a medjool, a staff member in national dress offers up a matching bowl in which to deposit the seed.

But there are still kinks: the receptionist kindly showed us to our room but the wrong one. Later, two elevator trips and requests with three staff were required to get a shisha.

But the shisha proved delicious and can be smoked outside at the pool while dipping your feet into the water. From there you can see the narrative of Abu Dhabi's rise told through its skyline: from the left, the lights of the main island, then the planned business hub of Maryah/Sowwah Island and, finally, the resorts of Saadiyat.

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