Bangkok, Thailand

Last updated: 6 Mar 2024

More diminutive than definitive, but we hope we’ve covered just enough to whet your appetite.

The not-so-good: Bangkok isn’t great for the hydro homies. Free-flow filtered water? You’d be lucky to find more than a few spots. Expect to tote around a lot of water bottles. And…expect (very) dark roast coffee practically everywhere.

The good: the food. Especially, to our surprise, those less street-food-y types. Read through and you’ll see why.

The Bangkok guide is divided into 4 categories, ordered alphabetically within each list, and will continuously be updated – photos and individual posts coming next.

The great:

• Charmgang Curry Shop: Spectacular. From the cowa leaves curry (fantastic, with the smokiest, most luscious pork jowl) to the grilled koji-aged picanha skewer (paired with a stunning fermented fish chili and tomato relish) to sublime duck. Only downside is the desserts pale in comparison – both the Thai caramel rice bar and custard apple in coconut syrup were a step below the cooked dishes. Also, they can be a bit heavy handed on the salt, even for a saline boi like me – e.g. the smoked swordfish curry was delectable, with gorgeously cooked and smoky fish, but crept up in saltiness towards the end. The casual setup of the place is great though, absolutely buzzing with a lovely open kitchen, beautifully decorated walls, perfect light levels etc. A must-visit, like every other spot in the “Great” category.
• Cote by Mauro Colagreco: Close to faultless. Impeccable service, great great food.
• G.O.D.: photos / videos don’t capture how impressive this place looks. Drinks fantastic too. Conceptual, yes, but the taste backs that up as well. Should be in my top 5 bars list for Bangkok, with Ku Bar, Rabbit Hole etc.
• Homeburg: Purely taste-wise, this had to be one of the greatest meals of my life. Definitely one of the most technically impressive too. This single location featured one of the best chawanmushi I’ve ever had, the best jerk chicken, the best ginger ale, the best steak, the best french fries etc…unreal. Luckily the desserts were just-okay, or this would have completely redefined what it means to be great.
• Ku Bar: Absolute gem of a space, has to be one of our favourite bars in Bangkok. Insanely cool setup and layout, with fantastically layered and complex cocktails. For instance: Bael-infused whisky with tobacco syrup, xuixian tea and rose water. Or a warm saffron latte longan. Or a super strong Szechuan peppercorn drink that slowly oozes more banana as you sip. S’all good, man.
• Larder: Oh wow, the best breakfast. Perfect thick-cut bacon slices, surprisingly yummy sourdough (surprising cos they slice it real thin), delish blood sausage
• Pad Thai Fai Ta Lu: Why are noodle portions so tiny in Bangkok? This place served some of the best pad thai (and siew yoke) that we’ve had though.
• Rabbit Hole: Great cocktails! Delicious, rich, complex, and just really well thought out. Take, for instance, the London Jesus (longan, saffron, coffee, salted Tonka cream) or the salted lemon butter layers of the Cowboy Pie. Thrilling stuff.
• Saawaan: Refined Southern Thai tasting menu. Loved a lot of it, especially the “toned-down” subtlety of flavours, the highlighting of specific techniques, and the petit fours actually being the strongest flavour punch of the meal.
• Samlor: Silly good. Delicious dishes. Attentive service. A must-visit.
• Some Time Blue: From what we could tell, they only have drip coffee. Both cups were great. Finally a cafe without crazy dark roasts. And they have free-flow water too. My kind of aesthetic, could easily double as a jazz / listening bar. Love the furniture.
• Tax: Love the interiors, the walls, the spacious layout split up into a lot of nooks, without being overly loud and echo-y, and the concept – vinegars from liquors etc. Tried two great cocktails, including a killer oolong with a sudden aftertaste of roasty toasty cashews. Definitely feels more of my place than Asia Today, but both would easily place in my top bars list in KL. And I’d be a regular at Tax.
• Zao Ekkamai: Insanely good Isaan food, one of the highlights of our Bangkok trip. Challenging, excitingly different flavours, all bursting out of some exceptional, layered, and well-priced dishes. Word of caution though: some of the dishes are crazy crazy spicy. Great service, lovely buzz in the dining room(s).

The good:

• 168 Thai Restaurant, inside Chatuchak market. Surprisingly delicious. Only tried 2 dishes, but still. Red curry thing is killer. Spicy sour soup very tasty. Coconut pudding delicious too.
• A Keen House: Iced long black fares much better than the hot, oddly enough. Good music, gorgeous design.
• Aksorn: A 1-star that doesn’t push boundaries too much, but bundles in a tasty meal within a lovely experience. The setting is cozy and inviting, the music top-notch, service pretty good, and the crockery and interiors mesh into a unique statement. Highlights of the food itself was the shrimp paste relish, a red curry with grilled salted beef, and the smoky sugar snap peas. Oh, and the nice walk down to the nice washroom.
• Asia Today: Backdoor Bodega vibes, but really tasty cocktails based around honey. Need to try more to potentially move it further up. The Eastern Honey (with the bee wax mug) was tasty, and the Bitter Have My Moni was even more so, with that punchy, vinegary cherry pickled liquor. Delightful.
• Bar 10010: nice ice cream – with loads of interesting flavours!
• Bask Project: good coffee, lovely space. Lots of cool stuff to look at and buy
• Bun Meat and Cheese: From the mad genius brain of Mr. Homeburg. Doesn’t quite reach those heights, but it’s still very good. Not as earth-shattering as the first time trying Homeburg, but it certainly beats out pretty much all burger joints in Malaysia, even Barbacoa.
• Nai Soon Charoen Nakhon: Delicious duck noodles…less depth than Heng Dee’s broth in Malaysia perhaps, but still hella tasty. Very competitively priced too.
• Okonomi: Japanese breakfast! Lovely little place.
• Rot Rue Dee: like the setup a lot. Well-priced too IMO. Well-cooked fare like the massaman curry with killer smokiness from the chicken. Decent mango sticky rice too.
• Rung Reung (Tung) noodle: yum pork noods, even the dry one.
• Save Our Souls: They say the burgers are good here, but I didn’t try them. The basil rice is solid though, surprisingly enough. Nice selection of craft beers to go alongside.
• Sugarray Apartment: Lovely bar setup (seats 10 at most along the bar counter, a small nook for 3 at the corner). Good drinks that would place it quite high up the KL Bar list, but not quite at the level of those in the Great category.

The decent:

• A Coffee Roaster by Li-bra-ry: Espresso was…almost kinda decent? Flat white tasty. Could potentially be the best out of the cafes in this category.
• Flaneur
• Gatta Cafe inside Siam Square: Slightly better than some other cafes we tried, but not by much.
• Mother Roaster: interesting space, decent coffee
• Nana Coffee Roasters Ari: Lush garden, great rendition of a dirty (though it ran a tad sweet, was still the best we had in BKK), but the default long black was a really dark roast, as per usual in BKK. Stick to milk-based stuff and you’d probably have a better time here.
• OFTR: Like the setup. The drinks are more mediocre – wouldn’t be out of place in KL.
• Prego: We only tried a risotto but it was fantastic. Potential to shoot up this list if all other dishes are as good.
• Shelter coffee
• Tai Soon Bar: A relatively nice space, with 18 beers on tap, opposite the overhyped Jay Fai. Not exactly the setup / feel / clientele / selection of beers that appealed to us though.

The not so good:

• Baan Pueng Chom: Highly recommended, highly disappointing. The star was the stir fried glass noodles with petai – every other dish was poor.
• Brave Roasters: Both long black and the filter served with too much water IMO, ratio feels off.
• Buay Pochana Thonglor: Decent egg noods, decent soup, nice duck leg, meh duck wonton. Overall serviceable but not a must-visit by any measure.
• Chimchim: Terrible coffee, breathtaking interiors. Might actually be worth visiting just for that.
• Conkey’s: The setting is gorgeous. Tranquil back garden. And the spread of bakes sets the heart a-flutter alright. But the pastries themselves are surprisingly not-great. E.g. the donut – love the orange custard filling in the bombolini but the donut itself could be better. Salty fig tart not bad, not great. Sourdough croissant very dense. Fairly mediocre even if it were in KL. Breads do look decent though.
• Holey Artisan: Challah meh. Berliner meh but the butterscotch glaze was quite alright. Disappointing beef baguette – everything cold and so-so, with the baguette being incredibly tough.
• Jasmine Siam Kitchen: Pineapple fried rice with tofu was expensive, and the rice was mushy. Red curry was tasty, despite the tough beef. Factoring in the prices vs setting etc, hard to justify moving this out of this category though.
• Paga: Boy do they love their dark roasts here. We had one alright filter, one standard-order dark-roast nearly-undrinkable long black.
• Red Diamond @ Thonglor: THB 120 for espresso. Fairly meh, all things considered. Strong dark roast like most places here.
• Supanniga: Disappointing. Expensive. At least the service is good. And the kai-yok song does have some tasty, plump crab meat.
• Tropic City: Hmmm.

Naturally, we’ve barely scratched the surface with Bangkok. Some other places we want to check out next time:

• 23 Bar & Gallery (bar in an art space)
• 80/20 (1 star)
• Alonetogether (collab between Sugar Ray and Ku Bar owners) (jazz performances Wed-Sun night. B400 cocktails, happy hour B300 from 6-8pm daily)
• Bamboo Bar (Mandarin Oriental)
• Bar Marco (listening bar)
• Beer Belly (20 taps)
• BKK Social Club (bar)
• Black King Pizzeria
• Bloom Pretzel & Coffee (pretzels and coffee)
• Blue by Alain Ducasse (1 star)
• Brioche from Heaven (cinnamon brioche and caramel, yuzu meringue)
• Cadence by Dan Bark (1 star)
• Canvas (1 star)
• Casa Blue (8 craft beers on tap, good German food)
• Craft Silom (20 taps)
• Doc Club & Pub (indie cinema)
• Dukedon (specializes in grilled, dry-aged Thai catfish. Duke don (B219), pla mor (perch fish) don (B249)) (Fri 12-7pm, Sat 10-7pm, Sun 10-5pm)
• Eight Days a Week Home Bar (only Thai craft beer – prices around B180-300) (5pm-12am daily)
• Gaa (1 of the best restaurants in Thailand) (B 4400++)
• Grow Tea Studio (Uji tea from South Kyoto)
• GTG Cafe (CBD infused drinks and cookies)
• Hair of the Dog (great craft beer spot) (11am-12am daily)
• Homeburg (6 courses, including the burger. B2500++)
• Huus of Bread (Jap-Scandi bakery. Shokupan-donut (shonut)) (10am-4.30pm, closed Mon)
• IGNIV Bangkok (1 star, “global” fine dining, 3 course lunch B 2000, 4 course dinner B 4000)
• Ink & Lion (great coffee) (9am-4pm daily)
• Keaton Tailor
• Kimi sushi bar (semi-outdoors omakase sushi,10 rotating natty wines, 6 seats per seating, B 2100 for 15 courses)
• Koji-delic (Nordic-style cuisine, all based around koji and fermentation. 10 courses B 3,500)
• Koryoriya-te (low-key shochu and sake bar) (6-11pm, closed Sun and Thurs)
• Laab Udon (good Isaan food, off Surasak BTS station) (4pm-3am daily)
• Labyrinth Cafe (great coffee in a basement bunker) (10am-6pm, closed Mon)
• Lahnyai (modern Thai. 14 courses B3,590++)
• Le Du (1 star, elevated Thai) (4 course tasting B 3000, 6 course tasting B 3600)
• Le Normandie (2 stars, Alain Roux (from 3 starred Waterside Inn) arrived in Jan 22. 3 course lunch menu B 3400)
• Liberty Area One @ Ekkamai (great clothing spot)
• Methavalai Sorndaeng (1 star)
• Mash (16 rotating beers, nice setting) (5-11pm, closed Sun)
• Mazzluna (2 stars)
• Mezzaluna (French Japanese fine dining, 7 courses B 6500)
• Middle Bar (good cocktails, B400)
• Mihara Tofuten (Gaggan partnering with someone from Fukuoka. Fine dining dedicated to tofu from Kyushu. 12 courses B 4900)
• Ministry of Crab (branch of Sri Lanka’s best restaurant. B 1,800 for 800g medium sized crab)
• Mod Kaew Wine Bar (ex-somm of Gaggan. No wine list. B690 for a 3 wine flight. Or get a bottle)
• Nahim Cafe x Handcraft 
• Nahm (1 star)
• Nine Pastry (challah, Jerusalem bagel etc) (8am-5pm, closed Wed)
• Paste (1 star)(modern progressive Thai, 1 star) (B 4300 for tasting menu, can get ala carte for around B1,000 per dish) (12-2pm, 6-11pm daily)
• Pijiu (Chinese beer bar)
• Pizza Massilia (great pizza)
• Potong (Thai-Chinese fine dining, 20 courses B 4,500)
• R u u classic cocktails (B300-400 cocktails, chill spot)
• R-Haan (2 stars)
• Rue De Mansri (good croissant, decent coffee, nice place)
• Saep Sudjai (good Isaan dishes, especially the pork liver with toasted rice)
• Samrub Samrub Thai (private dining, some of the best food in Thailand. B 4,500 for tasting menu) 
• Saneh Jaan (1 star, old school Thai dishes)
• Savelberg (1 star, French cuisine with touch of Dutch influence) (B 4750)
• Shuu Shuu (umeshu bar)
• Siwilai Sound Club (cocktail and jazz bar) (6pm-1am, closed Mon)
• Smalls (jazz bar)
• Soei (10.30am-9.30pm, closed Sat) (fried mackerel cheeks – may need to reserve, Thai shrimp ceviche, pla goong, soft shell crab in curry powder) (can end up queueing for 1-2 hours)
• Som Tam Sida (family run Isaan restaurant)
• Somtum Der (Isaan food)
• Sorn (2 stars)
• Soufflé and me (souffle) (11am-10pm daily)
• Sra Bua (1 star)
• Sunray (bright, pastely and airy cocktail bar. Drinks B300) (6pm-12am daily)
• Table 38 (great food, need to book way in advance next time) (5-9.30pm, closed Mon)
• Tapas Music Bar (modern tapas)
• Teens of Thailand (cocktail bar, gin-focused)
• Thaipioka (cocktails influenced by Thai flavours, B350) (7pm-2am daily)
• The Jam Factory (crafts, stores)
• The Rose Natural Wine Bar (small space, about 14 bottles usually. B350++ per glass, B1,600 upwards per bottle)
• The White House (great food and cocktails)
• Timo & Tintin (good coffee, gallery space)
• To More (jazz bar, nice cocktails)
• Varen (good coffee)
• Vesper (bar)
• Walden Home Cafe (good coffee, Parisian interiors)
• Wattanapanich (beef and goat soup noodles) (9am-7pm daily)