“From here on, it’s downhill all the way” I ominously announced to The Writer as soon as Jennifer opened the door to our villa. ‘Here’ was North Island, a luxury resort in the Seychelles to where we had just been airlifted by the wonderfully efficient Zilair, the helicopter service. From the air, the eco-reserve concept did its job and all we could see were talc-textured sand, granite mountains covered in vegetation and heavenly splatters of turquoise. ‘Here’ as it turned out, was just as perfect as the pilot had described.

North Island is how the other half lives. There are only 11 villas on this idyll which in 2007 ranked No. 1 in the world in the Condé Naste Traveller Reader Awards. As soon as we got an eyeful our very own pool, the lounging areas (five, at the last count, including a massive day bed covered in towelling sheets next to the bath, just in case we got tired after a relaxing soak), the dining tables made from reclaimed wood, the kitchen equipped with Porsche-design toaster and kettle, the massive bed strewn with real linen and surrounded with silk curtains – we knew we’d finally hit the hospitality jackpot.

The menu, prepared and changed daily, was just a suggestion - breakfast, brunch, elevenses, lunch, tea, cocktails and dinner would be wherever we wished, however we wished them. We’d come a long way not to be fussed with, or to be made a fuss over, so we indulged. Even caviar, Jenny, the host, said. Just not instantly. “If you feel like it we’ll fly it over for you from Dubai.” We decided to stick to the local cuisine, which can be Mauritian, Seychellois or simply fresh and extremely yummy. The photos are of the real thing and frankly you can eat them whenever.

Our villa came complete with Fred, our butler, and a retinue of staff who, like mice in a fairytale, we hardly got a glimpse of, as they prepared food or cleared the massive rooms which we managed to mess up every hour. Fred had also flown over, only he’d done it four years previously and from South Africa, the country that must take centre stage in tourism customer service.

Fred made just the right amount of fuss, knowing when to chat and when to leave us alone. Service on North Island is mostly South African, and having visited the wonderful land, I’ve decided that it’s the absolute best in the world due to its people: friendly without gagging to become your drinking buddy, discreet yet attentive, innovative without trying to re-invent the wheel.

When you can eat whatever you feel like - fresh lobster, crabs, coconut palm heart - you normally opt for simple fare. Which is what TW did. His first lunch, in fact, was ‘fish and chips’. No matter that it came with - chilli mayonnaise so fresh it was like biting into a yolk-stuffed capiscum - or that the fish inside the beer batter was sustainable and line-caught from the Seychellois crystal clear waters.

We never ate the same thing twice, or in the same manner. We finally dragged ourselves out of the villa (two mountain bikes and one buggy at our disposal) and on to the beach, so completely secluded so that I found myself singing very loudly in the shade of the palms while TW collected shells washed up with the surf. We were treated to an amazing picnic (Fred and the staff turned up, prepared it and vanished, like fairies), a barbeque for two on the sand while the sun set and a Creole feast on yet more sand in the glow of a full moon. Not all at the same time.

The Honeymoon Beach is so fabulous it has to be seen to be believed: a private space made only for two, right on the sand. We drove there in our buggy practically daily and one day we decided we wanted ice-cream. Fred turned up a few minutes later with a few balls of the real thing. If that is not luxury, then I don't know what is.

On our last night, Jeremy, the resident sommelier-factotum, even organised a wine-tasting, on the beach. Eating, and drinking is included in the price of accommodation, and on North Island, it’s a little like sampling heaven. On the other hand, so is sleeping, swimming, walking or driving the electric golf buggy through the rainforest, trying not to crash into Harry, the 150-year old resident turtle. Even having our table attacked by lizards, who dastardly smell human food from miles away, was only an excuse to slap more ‘perfection’ labels on the whole thing. After all, you only notice how white a sheet of paper is when you paint a little black dot on it.

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No amount of words can do North Island justice, so I suggest that you log on to http://www.north-island.com, preferably when you’re having a hard time at work and wish to start believing in something good, something better. Every single guest book entry described it as ‘paradise’. I can only concur.

It's not that heavenly everywhere though, so beware where you book.

Our first days in the Seychelles had been spent at the Lemuria Resort on Praslin, pronounced, after I much mispronounced it, praa-len. The food concept here is very different. Since, unlike North, it’s not ‘all-inclusive’, we were quite taken by surprise with the prices, which are the same as most other resorts in the Seychelles: high.

Set menus, for example, cost at least Eur70 per person. The shocker was the alcohol, with a tot costing more than a bottle, on average LM7. The Italian television presenter Gerry Scotti, who was also at Lemuria, did not seem stunned at all: rich people never check prices since, as the dictum goes, if you need to, you probably can’t afford it.

Regardless though, the culinary level was always blue-sky high, and we practically indulged in haute cuisine the whole way. Having spent our days in shorts and barefoot, on our last night at Lemuria, we finally got dressed up and walked to the Sea Horse restaurant. It was candle-lit and full of love-struck couples like us.

The French chef is fusing Creole and French food over the largest menu I’ve ever seen. Cinnamon leaf, bilimbi, kalou and badamier nuts all got walk-on parts. My ‘cocktail of poached lobster in lemongrass jelly, cumin avocado mousse, diced tomato and parmesan biscuit’ was a triumph of peppery cream with a good kick, but TW was sorely disappointed by his choice.

The scallop and cherry tomato carpaccio marinated with coriander seed, ‘instantaneous boiled with a hot lemongrass rock lobster consommé’ turned out to be a weak and tepid broth valiantly trying to cook the sliced scallop. Maybe a case of experimentation going a few steps too far and falling off the gangplank. The rest of the meal, however, was wonderful.

And what if you venture out of your resort?

At the Marie Antoinette in Victoria, the capital of Mahe, nobody is about to experiment with anything, least of all good food. Much to our obvious pain, we had to leave North Island early (the helicopters don’t fly at night) for our 1am Emirates flight. We had a few hours to kill and wanted to try a family-run Creole restaurant.

As it turned out, the very foreign chefs at North and Lemuria seem to know how to make Creole better than the Seychellois themselves. Arriving at 7pm, we literally had to argue our way in, even if we did have a booking. ‘We have two large tables’, the staff said.

And in fact, there they came: two busloads of French and German tourists so decrepit they must remember Alexander the Great in his nappy. Bedecked in holiday-wear (yes, sandals and socks are still it), they spent hours taking pictures of themselves pointing at their own business cards on the business-card wall.

When we were finally allowed to the table – think loads of wicker, fake lace covered in plastic, coloured paper napkins, and all the bric-a-brac in the world – we were explained the ‘restaurant’s concept’. ‘It’s a buffet…on your table’.

At 7.15pm, they brought every single item on the set menu to our table. “But like this, we’ll be too early for our flight” we pleaded to deaf ears. “We have two big tables” they reiterated. At 8, they had already cleared.

The food was, to cut a short story even shorter, awful. I never knew spice could be tasteless, but the Marie Antoinette taught me it is possible. The meat was indescribable, the curries tasted of cardboard, the rice like eating congealed dust. TW, ever the masochist, had ‘dessert’, an optional ice-cream so chemical Heston Blumenthal would have set up a lab around it. Not happy with the flagellation thus far, TW even ordered post-prandial ‘local rum’ pronouncing it so foul he could have cleaned his car engine with it.

So my initial pronouncement turned out to be more true than I ever wanted to believe. North Island is a long way to go to find paradise, but then nobody said the road to heaven was paved with gold. With prices in the Seychelles being what they are, you might just need a few ingots to get there. Every gram will be worth your while.

Emirates flies out of Malta with very good connections to the Seychelles, daily.  Book them and North Island through Royal Travel, whose wonderful staff know exactly how to make your dreams come true without any stress on your part.