Beresheet

Israel keeps its drama for the desert. Beresheet sits at Mitzpe Ramon, right on the edge of Makhtesh Ramon, the largest of the erosion craters the Negev is known for, a forty-kilometre gash in the rock that falls away for several hundred metres below the terrace. The hotel is built low and heavy in local stone, closer to an old hilltop village than to a resort, so that from the crater floor it reads as part of the cliff. There are 111 rooms and villas set across the grounds; the ones to hold out for sit on the ground floor with a private pool, or high enough on the upper level to take the crater full in the face. Nothing here competes with the view, which is the whole idea.

The table

Rosemarine is the main room, and its terraces hang out over the desert so that dinner arrives with the light going down across the crater. There is a poolside kitchen, ChillOut, for the long afternoons, and a separate dairy restaurant for the slow mornings. The cooking is modern and kosher, meat in one room and dairy in another as the tradition asks, built on Israeli produce. On a table this exposed the setting keeps the last word, and breakfast on the edge, before the heat arrives, is the meal people remember.

Why it's in VANE

Mitzpe Ramon was a forgotten desert town until the crater turned it into a destination, and Beresheet is the reason most people now make the drive south from the coast. It is a large hotel, and on a full weekend you feel the numbers. But the architecture holds its nerve, the stone keeps the rooms cool and quiet, and after dark the Negev delivers a sky you will not find within reach of a city. Come for a couple of nights, take the crater walk at first light, and do not rush back to the coast.