So Wild

Plant-based Soneva Jani restaurant in an organic garden, reviving Southeast Asian recipes with Diana von Cranach's botanical cooking.

So Wild is Soneva Jani at its most botanically persuasive. Tucked inside the resort’s organic garden, the restaurant turns dinner into a walk through herbs, healing plants, and nearly forgotten recipes from the Indonesian Spice Islands and wider Southeast Asia.

Chef Diana von Cranach’s imprint gives the experience its shape: plant-based, health-conscious, and rooted in seasonality rather than substitution. Soneva’s current description notes that 90% of ingredients are freshly harvested from the resort garden, with dishes prepared raw or gently cooked through steaming, flash-frying, or dehydrating. That is not veganism as absence. It is veganism with texture, heat, fragrance, and a very good sense of theatre.

The old source mentions papaya ceviche, miso eggplant “scallops”, greens, and coconut noodles; current menus will, naturally, move with the garden. The important fact is the method. So Wild treats plants as protagonists, not side dishes promoted in an emergency.

The setting helps enormously: thatched structures, garden paths, low evening light, and Soneva’s familiar ease around barefoot luxury. Dinner is currently listed on selected days, with limited capacity, so booking ahead is part of the ritual. For plant-forward travellers in the Maldives, So Wild is a rare thing: a resort restaurant where the ethical choice is also the most interesting seat in the house.