Ithaa Undersea Restaurant

The first underwater restaurant of its kind in the world. Ithaa, which means pearl in Dhivehi, is a mostly acrylic undersea restaurant secured fifteen feet below sea level at the Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa (soon to be the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island) in Rangalifinolhu, Maldives. The five-by-nine meter restaurant has a capacity of 14 people and is encased in R-Cast acrylic which is a transparent acrylic roof offering 270° panoramic view to its customers. The restaurant was designed and constructed by M.J. Murphy Ltd. - a design consultancy based in New Zealand - and was opened on April 15, 2005. Meals range in cost from US$120.00 (lunch for hotel guests on Full Board meal plan) to US$250.00 (dinner for hotel guests on Bed & Breakfast meal plan).


Ithaa's entrance is a spiral staircase in a thatched pavilion at the end of a jetty. The tsunami which followed the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake topped out at 0.3m below the staircase entrance, and caused no damage to the restaurant.