TYLISH hospitality and regal Arab tradition come vividly alive at Al Bait Sharjah, conjured up from a cluster of stately Emirati homes reimagined with sumptuous understatement in earth tones and soft pools of light. Here business and leisure travellers can literally live in a gracious residence in the Heart of Sharjah in a 53-room resort (opened Dec 2018) where traditional motifs, pastel tones and brass artefacts combine with contemporary chic to create a very refined pulse-soothing escape.

While clearly a top Sharjah luxury resort with a painstakingly authentic feel, service is quiet, attentive and unfussily down to earth. Spacious rooms and suites stretch up to 57sq m in a Heritage Suite with vast de rigueur flatscreen televisions to catch your news and entertainment and spoiling bathrooms and amenities for an après-work or shopping wind down. With a splendid location close to art, mosques, and museums, as well as the market bustle of Souq Al Arsah, this holiday escape will give you a heady dose of cultural adrenalin perhaps infused with the aroma of of strong qahwa Arabic coffee, unless your tastes run to cappuccino - with camel milk.

Business travellers may opt for small corporate meetings and hushed CEO chinwags. Events and intimate weddings are a breeze and the whole hotel can be requisitioned. The Al Bait Grand Suite with 102sq m of stretch space and four-poster beds is tempting bridal bait or a luxe hideaway for the most demanding hedonist.

A pool offers alfresco cooling while a 500sq m spa separated into sections for ladies and men promises wellness pampering from body polish and wraps to hammam, steam room, and the Fitness Centre. The Library is on hand for more sedate browsing of antiquarian books or modern reads. The Arabic Restaurant serves innovative culinary creations in atmospheric surrounds while The Ice Cream Shop has a mischievous addition to the sorbet and other chilled delights - dondurma, Turkish play-dough ice cream with its blend of salep flour and mastic resin. If you're tired of show-off architecture and preening hordes, this is a stylish secluded retreat for you. Al Bait Sharjah is the brainchild of innovative Singapore-based GHM Hotels that specialises in upmarket boutique resorts, artfully blending traditional heritage with unique contemporary flair for the discerning.