Table by the water

Fish for dinner?

That’s guaranteed at Ithaa Undersea restaurant in the Maldives where guests dine in an acrylic-encased room 16 feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean.

No matter what’s on your plate, reef fish surround guests in this one-of-a-kind restaurant, whicht opened in 2005 at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resort. To get to Rangali, part of the South Ari Atoll, visitors take a 30-minute seaplane flight from Male, the capital of the Maldives. The country is made up of 1,190 coral islands, of which only about 200 are inhabited and 80 are tourist resorts, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.

The cuisine at Ithaa (which means “pearl”) is described as “fusion Maldivian.” Sample dinner menu: reef fish with grape, almond and saffron reduction with green pea mille-feuille and, for dessert, stuffed coconut pancake. (There’s a simpler four-course lunch menu too.)

The restaurant seats about a dozen people, so the hotel recommends making reservations at least three weeks in advance (conradhotels1.hilton.com/en/ch/hotels/index.do?ctyhocn=MLEHICI). Expect to pay about $150 per person for lunch and $320 per person for dinner.

-- travel.latimes.com