Cap Karoso

Character and identity

Cap Karoso sits on Karoso Beach in Sumba's remote Kodi district, an hour south of Tambolaka airport, on a sloping plot that faces the open Indian Ocean. The architecture is a deliberate break from Indonesian resort tropes: concrete-clad, straight-lined structures softened by pierre sèche drystone walls of local limestone, glazed tiling drawn from wicker patterns, and abstract pieces by French-Indonesian artist Ines Katamso. A two-storey main building holds most of the rooms, with stand-alone suites and villas in tropical gardens. Three restaurants anchor the food programme, including 20-seat Julang with its rotating chef residencies, plus Apicine for sunset cocktails and the Malala Spa village.

Who's it for

Bottom line

The defining draw is the combination of ambitious French-Indonesian cooking and a genuinely thoughtful relationship with Sumba's culture, on a wild stretch of coast almost no one else has reached. Splash on a stand-alone suite or one of the new villas if you want space and a lagoon pool; book around a Julang chef residency if the food is the reason you're flying this far.