Tamanu on the beach — Restaurant in Efate

Perfect in every way possible!

Location: 30 minutes from the busy Port Villa. Whilst this may seem inconvenient to get to tours, the fact that this secluded gem is hidden alongside a beautiful coral filled beach really makes you feel like you are hidden away in paradise.

Keep in mind the team have a shuttle bus that goes to Port Villa at 9:30am every day and returns from the port at 12:30.

Service: Unbelievable attentive. The team here are soooo nice that rather than being our bar-tenders & waiters they all became our friends. They would consistently go way above and beyond to make sure that we were comfortable and this was always done with a smile and a laugh. I've never left a place before and actually felt the need to give hugs to all of the staff working. The team here are excellent.

Rooms: We had a beach view villa. Stunning. The couples that had the pool villa's also loved them. Didn't hear one negative thing said about the rooms. All amenities that you wanted were available. There was supposedly a TV with a bunch of movies available to access...didn't realise there was a TV there, there's heaps to do.

Food: The food is fine dining BUT please remember that the island had just overcome a cyclone and given it's location, it is difficult to get access to a consistant variety of produce. Most of the nights we stayed some items were unavailable (some nights the chicken, some nights the fish, they ran out of muffins etc.). That all said, with what they were working with they delivered the best that they could.

Breakfast - everything on the breakfast menu was a hit Lunch/Dinner - Our favourites were the steaks, madras curry & Thai green curry. They did have a crab dish special which looks spectacular but the crab didn't have as much meat as we would've hoped. The fried rice had a little too much soy sauce when we had it so it was slightly salty. (I am really clutching at straws here).

Service again - I forgot to mention that the team are prepared for everything. They have reef shoes to borrow if you would like to go for a walk along the beach, snorkles, room service etc.

There are E-Bikes for loan. PLEASE get them and go for a ride in the arvo. It was a lot of fun, the locals were so loving as we rode by they would all wave and the school kids would be screaming their heads off in excitement to see us.

Plenty of tours available to be booked at Tamanu. I suggest booking them from Tamanu, not on tripadvisor or anything, as Tamanu is a little way out from town and you don't want to be stressing out trying to figure out if your bus is coming to pick you up or trying to get into town in time for a tour. (Do the blue lagoon tour!)

Spa - We had two massaged, couldn't fault them. I'm not a fan of massages usually but these guys did exactly what I had asked them, they were courteous and professional. I may have fallen asleep and drooled a little on the second one that's how good it was!

Big special shout out to Isabelle & Jenny who helped us out a lot and made us really feel the love. All the drivers we had were the loveliest bunch of lads who were so informative and really down to earth guys who shared a lot about their lives and their villages.

All in all, thank you to the whole team for recharging our batteries. I'm going to miss my morning coconut with breakfast!

*I will add photo's once I get them...

The last 7 km to arrive are dirt roads with holes everywhere, so it takes ages to get in and out. Our room didn't have a key, so anyone could potentially get inside.The whole bathroom is outside, separated from the garden by a short wall so not very private (I also don't recommend showers at night). The fridge made noises all night. They were building something close to our room so the noise woke me up everyday at 8am. They love adding onions to breakfast even if you ask not to. They recommended a car rental which ended up being more expensive, despite me telling them there was a cheaper one (I wouldn't be surprised if the hotel and the car rental belong to the same owner). There was a noisy wedding (late at night) next to our room, they moved us to another room only because I asked to (they thought we would be ok just because they gave us a letter about it), it was much nicer than the 1st one. The next day they asked us to move back to our previous room, no help offered. I sent an email to the administration complaining about all the previous issues, saying in thr email that I was goimg to publish it also in review websites. Next morning the manager approached to me at breakfast, took me to a different place, and apologised about everything, offering to pay for the car rental (around 1/3 of what we paid for the hotel). I asked for a confirmation which we received the day after, so I decided to delete all the reviews as an act of good faith. The next day, the same manager approached to us at breackfast and in front of everyone told us very aggressivelythat we would have to pay for the car again because of thr damage caused by my online reviews (which I deleted the day before), that was the 2nd time I felt humiliated. I explained to her more than once that those reviews were gone, so at the end they agreed to pay for around 1/3 of the car. I thought it was the minimum they should have done for making us pay for a more expensive car, and it didn't cover the damage, stress and humiliation during my holidays, but I agreed because I didn't want any more trouble. That was by far the worst holiday experience ever. A few weeks later I published the reviews again, and on fb they accused me of stealing things from the room and they threatened me with being prosecuted if I ever go back to Vanuatu, all of this of course in a very agressive and personal way. The lack of professionalism and experience of these peiple is overwhelming. So be careful...

Probably one of the best places to stay on Efate island. Hired a car and drove ourselves down. There is also a bus transfer, but the car was so great to get around the island during our stay. Shell necklace and fruit mocktail on arrival was a delightful welcome. Room (suite 2) is idyllic and had a very trendy “open shack” feel, with a view to the beach. There is no fly screens and we never had any mosquitos or flies or anything, but I believe our stay was unusually windy. It was so nice to be open and have the sea wind flow into the room. The room cleanliness was okay, but I did spot some hairs on the shower tiles in two spots that were not ours. Glass and mirrors were not cleaned very well - water stains etc. it didn’t feel dirty exactly, but it would look so much better if someone got in there and gave it a proper bleach and scrub! Flowers were scattered in the room on arrival which was pretty, though some had a few little ants. Wifi was fast but super patchy and intermittent in the room. No signal at all by the pool. Pool was never busy - often ours exclusively or shared only with one other couple. Plenty of sunbeds. Could do with some background music. Not heated, so need to be pretty brave to get in. Beach is wavy and sand is white and soft, but with lots of coral chunks and the occasional bit of plastic/glass. The sea water felt quite warm. No one really was on the beach that I saw. The hotel is far from things, so we dined in mostly. Food is pretty good! Normally I hate eating in hotels, but this felt different :-) Bill at the end of our stay was a bit confusing, transport was in our total, but we’d driven, but it was taken off easy enough. Would definitely recommend this place when...