Everybody roots for the home team, and the Fragipani group, which started out with just seven rooms – Villa 60s – in 2007, was launched by Somethearith Din, who goes by the name of Ritz, and some like-minded friends with savings and borrowings rustled up however they could.

In 2007, with just three other boutique hotels in Phnom Penh, it was an idea whose time had arrived, and all the expansion that has followed since, both in the capital in Siem Reap, has been built on demand.

We love the understated Frangipani Fine Arts – named after its proximity the Royal University of Fine Arts – for its charming centrepiece garden and the fact that everything inside this elegant space is designed by the Frangipani crew and made locally, with no rare woods (in fact hardly any wood at all) exploited. “We like to keep it clean and minimal, and nothing was imported,” says Ritz.

Frangipani has eight branches, strictly speaking, but the two in Siem Reap have been merged into one.

PHOTOS: Chris Taylor