Saddle up at Polo Palladio for a taste of Jaipur’s social scene
Visit a members’ club in Jaipur that celebrates tradition with a little flair.
Ever since Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II, who once ruled Jaipur under the British Raj, led India to victory at the Polo World Cup in 1957, the city’s passion for the sport has flourished. And it’s a love affair encapsulated today by Polo Palladio, a members’ clubhouse beneath the stands of the Rajasthan Polo Club.
Opened in 2024, it’s the latest Jaipur-based project by Swiss-Italian entrepreneur Barbara Miolini, who established herself by designing hotels in St Moritz. Having founded restaurant Bar Palladio in 2013 and Villa Palladio, a former hunting lodge-turned-hotel, in 2022, she has made the Palladio name a staple of Jaipur’s social circuit.
The polo club’s archives celebrate a stately history. There are portraits of Princess Diana, vintage team photographs and letters from Queen Elizabeth II, who attended a polo match during a state visit in 1961. “The guest list once featured princes and playboys, dynastic scions and socialites,” says Miolini, who was intent that the club’s design should nod to these historic details.
Polo Palladio’s interior was brought to life by Dutch designer Marie-Anne Oudejans, Miolini’s long-term collaborator and the designer of all three of her properties. Where traditional clubs often veer towards conservative restraint, Oudejans brought bold colour, daring geometry and modern Indian craft – think made-to-measure furniture, hand printed fabrics and glassware engraved with two crossed mallets. The space, says Miolini, is a homage to the history and glamour of the maharajas who played there.
On match days, the pitch welcomes the whole city. Members take to the stands where turbaned waiters serve sharp cocktails and crunchy chaat, while the public claims the grass below. “What I love about Polo Palladio is that you never know who you might meet and what you might discuss,” says Miolini. Old Jaipur families sit alongside lawyers, professors, artists and jewellers. “No one is guarded.”
After the match, the garden opens for high tea. Chicken majnoon (a spiced pomegranate roast with saffron-infused rice and fiery prawns) is on the menu – a nod to the sport’s Persian origins. The crowd, often dressed in saris and diamonds or sporting safari jackets and pipes, has been known to have pitch-side parties that last into the early hours. “Very few spaces in Jaipur feel this way,” says Miolini.
Further reading?
– How The Lobb Club became Bangkok’s coolest tennis hangout
– Rio’s extraordinary Costa Brava Clube began with a tent on the sand
– Why does everyone want to be a member of Madrid’s Real Club de Campo Villa?
