"This island getaway for aesthetes is one of the cleverest resorts to open this year—a particular achievement during a pandemic. It's the first of a new progressive brand of hotels from Capella. Patina and the recently opened Ritz-Carlton are also the first hotels built on the man-made Fari Islands, in the North Malé atoll. With space at a premium, artificial isles aren't new in the Maldives, but here serious sustainability efforts and conservation projects go a long way to mitigate the environmental impact of the construction. The resort's 90 pool villas aren't the largest in the Maldives, but they impress in other ways, with glass walls that retract on three sides. In the bathrooms there are exfoliating seaweed soaps from Haeckels, and at bedtime vitamins appear on pillows in lieu of chocolates. The Flow Spa, where the treatment rooms look like sugar cubes tossed into the long grass, offers high-tech therapies—flotation pods, LED-light therapy, Iris sound immersions—alongside rituals like an out-of-body experience in the Watsu pool with Balinese healer Purnomo Diretno. Patina also has eight bars and restaurants, each one exceptional. The Maldives' next generation starts here."