Dune de L'orient

Hotel

We came here for dinner.
food is not good. Few dishes were not available from the menu, we ordered chicken and daal and that also had excess salt. Even the chicken was not cooked properly.
we will not recommend this restaurant to others.

Decent and calm place. Food is good, great ambiance.

Nice ambience in a renovated French styled building. Good staff. Prompt response by staff on issues. No 24*7 kitchen or in-room dining.

A beautiful hotel, very clean and breezy place. The decor is old world. Staff is very friendly and genuinely kind. They make good coffee, but there is no Cafe so don't go here very hungry. A good spread for dinner too. We stayed here for 2 days and walked everywhere around. Very well located and just a kilo meter from the railway station. Will surely go back here.

Superb hospitality and great ambience. Courteous and helpful staff as well. Keep it up guys!

Great Ambience! Justed loved it… Awesome place for tasty food!

Lovely place! Wonderful experience as the place has perfect balance of the bygone era and modern amenities… with very good staff.

A commendable restoration Good food Nice staff Fabulous location.

Very good location and true French architecture. The renovation was done painstakingly.

New management has taken over. Indian food is good however french food served by them was unfortunately tasteless. Staff is polite and service is good too.

Wonderful hotel. Been there three times already and returning again this year. Edit: As of December 2017, this hotel was sold by Neemrana Hotels to the Dune chain and is now named Dune de L'Orient. I was unable to check its quality since it wasn't fully ready when we were visiting. But be aware that the info here is very outdated.

I would totally ignore the previous review (an irate customer who himself probably got his booking wrong! ). Dune de L’Orient is a wonderful establishment for those who can appreciate why it has been designed in the way it has. If you’re looking for TVs and full American style breakfasts then try somewhere else. This establishment recreates the splendour of a bygone era with its combined European and Indian influences throughout. The Mahe room is amazing. The staff are wonderful too, especially Stalin. We’ll be back!

Authentic French and Creole food in warm outdoor seating under the neem tree. Calm and romantic. Had been recently renovated and taken over by Dune. The flora in the courtyard need to regrow! The menu recounts the history of the place with photos. Reasonable pricing. Highly recommended.

Wonderful heritage property. Recently taken over by Dune from Neemarana and fully renovated. Great hospitality and rooms furnished with attention to detail with antique period furniture.

Beautiful place but it's closed now… No more hotels now. Under Renovation.

A historical site renovated to make a Heritage hotel… Nice structure and good ambience it will take you back in time… Nicely located in the white town.

Antique property. 100 metre from Beach Rd. Spacious and classic French style room. Aarsi upgraded me with "Heritage with Romance room" which is in ground floor. No is a demerit. And bfast menu should be increased.

Damn shame. Neemrana Group has a fantastic historic house at their disposal and they have mismanaged and run it into the ground in the name of extracting as much profit as possible. The staff is really friendly, but the rooms are extremely dingy. Bathrooms are not too bad, but the bathtub fixtures are broken and the toilet leaks onto the floor making it a very sour experience. The air conditioner was inoperable during the 3 days of our stay. The beds were comfy and linens were clean, but the comforters are just really cheap looking mass produced and make the whole room look dingy. There is a musty smell because the air conditioner is blowing humid air only. Breakfast was terrible and the food overall was 2/5 stars at best. I only rated the hotel a 3/5 stars because of the exceptionally friendly staff. I would recommend NOT staying here. Depressing to say the least, my mother stayed here years ago while Francis Wacziarg was still alive and said here experience was the total opposite.

Cold ratatouille with tuna?! Went for it as the waiter assured me that it was fresh but definitely canned Then the guy brought me nuts 2 times?! The wine was not cold enough Nobody came back to me to propose any other options The curry was not seasoned, I can could better myself Really not expected that has we had good vibes regarding that same place Not good at all.

Like the other Neemrana properties+ Calm & old, takes you to a different world. No swimming pool is the only demerit. And breakfast could have been better Try different rooms, every room has a story…

Very disappointed right from the moment I landed in the hotel. The website talks about beach view for the rooms in 1st floor & hence they even charge close to double the price of ground floor rooms. The room which I had booked was outside of the main property and secondly the balcony faced a wall of a restoraunt in South than any signs of beach which was nowhere to be seen. The staff just listen to the complaints and acknowledged that they will get back with solution but later take lame excuse for avoiding the guest. The experience in dining area of the hotel was equally bad with the folks serving in inappropriate cutlery & keeping what looked like a pretty old stock of jam/marmalade. There was disturbance in room from people knocking at the door thinking it's a house and not part of a hotel. Overall very very bad experience staying here.

Loved every second of our stay here. Mr Sakthi was very very helpful. The ambiance and the service was top notch. We are looking forward to our next stay with them!

Nice rooms. A beautiful building in the style of the houses of Pondichery. Good location Friendly staff For breakfast you can take them elsewhere…

This property is an absolutely gorgeous and beautifully updated French Colonial mansion. Each room is unique and tastefully decorated with antique art and furnishings. I visited in June, and while the weather was scorching the A/C kept my room cool. The location is in the center of town, close to great shopping, restaurants, and the beach. The staff was excellent. June is low season for tourists so the hotel wasn't very busy when we arrived, and when we checked in the staff allowed us to view and pick from all available rooms instead of the two we had booked and paid for. We ended up in beautiful, large rooms upstairs that I'm sure cost more than the smaller rooms we had paid for. I was in the Balassore room upstairs, with a bathtub and a lovely view of the courtyard. Make sure you check out the photos on the wall near the front desk that show what the building looked like before the remodel in 2000! They have done an incredible job restoring what was essentially a ruin. My new favorite place to stay in Pondy!

We chose the neemrana hotel because we had stayed at several other properties with very fond memories. At 50% discount we jumped at the chance to stay in such a wonderful place like Pondicherry and that too at such a quaint place. Overall everything was fine. Mind you we only stayed 2 days so it was not enough time to discover the downside if any. We reached very late on a Friday night and called ahead as we were sure that we would miss dinner. The kept aside the food we order one fish curry and one vegetarian curry. It was certainly different and well made so thoroughly enjoyed it. The room! turned out to be an attic converted with an open bathroom. LOL not very nice taking a dump was a controlled affair of trying not to make too much noise. So we aplogized to each other before entering and doing the business. My friend is rather large so the climb up to the room was somewhat of an adventure which give the discount we did not mind. Taking a bath was OK not great, the space was sooo small one really needed to keep the arms close the body. The morning breakfast was limited and for me adequate. I feel others may find it insufficient. I did however sit for along time downstairs reading my kindle and literally emptying their coffee pot. Strong, flavoursome. The boast fresh croissants which were nice to go with the coffee and preserve.

Great organisation. Superb quality of food and happy staff. Very helpful.

Visited the hotel just for the Carte Blanche Restaurant inside! One of the famous French restaurants in Pondicherry; the ambiance is the best thing about the place. The food is decent with good Vegetarian options.

I visited the restaurant located in this hotel, called Carte Blanche. Its classically designed and has a proper French charm. The breakfast buffet, although not extensive, offered good choices. I especially loved the chocolate croissants. And they serve lunch and dinner a-la-carte. Service is efficient and servers are well spoken, which I believe certainly adds to the experience. I would recommend this place to everyone for its amazing food quality and service.

This place looks the part of a nice restaurant, but it really is just a trap for international tourists who don't know better. The chapathis were undercooked and the food is not of good quality. There was something falling from the roof into our plates during our dinner, quite disgusting. Would not recommend at all for the food and service, but the ambience was nice.

Wonderful hotel. Been there three times already and returning again this year.

Went there on the 13/09/13 as we saw our Rick Stein cook there for his India programme on the BBC and it was rather disappointing — the chef had rather liberal interpretation of creole cusine and the food is best described as unmemorable. The staff however, couldn't care less and it showed. On the plus side it's a real architectural jem and, providing they can re-inspire their staff, the place can shine in the future… Nice masala tea and seafood crepe though and for curries I would recommend the beef (decent flavours but a bit thin) and prawn (they use whole curry leaves which is a plus) but, for the love of God, stay clear of the chicken as it's a dish with serious identity problem. The less said of pannacota the better — a super sugary blob of nothingness that disintegrated completely within 2 minutes in the sun… Shame.

Charming hotel with historic rooms. Each room has a name and a character of its own. The restaurant is nice, and I can not recommend enough the spicy mango yogurt soup. Its flavor still haunts me, years after.