Bangkok Hotels Where The Restaurants Compete With the Rooms

Ponying up for Thai food at a fancy restaurant in Bangkok often yields a meal that is good but not great, and up to five times what you would pay a street vendor. One of the exceptions to this rule is The Celadon, a Thai fine dining restaurant at The Sukothai, who specializes in royal Thai cuisine and centuries-old recipes.

Highlights include tom kah gai (coconut cream soup served in a whole coconut) and yam som poo nim (pomelo salad with soft-shell crab). A set menu is available, but diners are better served sharing a selection of curries, noodles, and rice dishes from the various sections of the large menu.

People dining at Charcoal would be wise to buddy up with other diners, because the mouth-watering Indian dishes here are designed to share. The industrial design skews more New York City than Bangkok, and copper pots hand-sourced from markets in Delhi line the walls. Waiters tie red- and white-checkered aprons around the guests (proving again that Charcoal isn’t a normal curry joint) as an exciting lineup of traditional northwestern tandoori cuisine parades out of the kitchen. With nay a curry in sight, the kebabs rule the house. Lamb chops marinated overnight in red chili, cumin, malt vinegar and ginger garlic pair perfectly with the dal, and a cottage cheese dish like paneer tikka.

As one of Europe’s most lauded chefs, Holland native Henk Savelberg (who has earned a Michelin star a four different retaurants) has built a career on perfecting the finer details of eating and drinking. At Savelberg, the chef’s first venture outside the Netherlands, French food is served with a laser-like focus on meticulous presentation.

Highlights—in both presentation and taste—include oysters and caviar crowned with a light-as-air saffron foam, and grilled turbot served with king mushroom, goat milk, yuzu and cream of green peas. Currently, Savelberg is at the helm of his eponymous new kitchen in Bangkok.

Sra Bua is the Bangkokian cousin to Copenhagen’s famed Kiin Kiin, the only restaurant in the world to receive a Michelin star for Thai cuisine. Serving modern interpretations of traditional Thai food, the chefs at Sra Bua push the boundaries of texture and form while providing the comforts of traditional Thai flavors. The frozen red curry with lobster salad is a signature starter, but here the red curry looks more like ice cream and the bites of lobster are paired with sips of Thailand’s famous hot tom yum soup. Dishes here are Thai food unlike anything else in Bangkok.

Featuring a wide variety of Asian and Western dishes, the Verandah’s colonial riverside setting is the perfect all-day dining spot. Centrally located near tourist attractions like Wat Pho and Wat Arun, food is served either indoors or outdoors overlooking the Chao Phraya River. The selection of Thai food on the à la carte menu is accommodating to those with a mild tolerance for spice. Standout dishes are the sea bass and khao soi, a noodle dish made famous in Chiang Mai. There’s freshly baked pastries from the in-house pastry kitchen and homemade ice creams, too. If you’re dining here for dinner, duck into the Bamboo Bar after for a digestif.

This international chain of contemporary Japanese restaurants has a modern, spacious design featuring a sushi bar, robata grill, terrace and cocktail bar. Cocktails at Zuma are innovative (try the smoked negroni), and glasses come served in an ice-packed wooden crate, while a large selection of French and Austrian wines are on the menu, too. Traditional and modern delights rule the large menu, but opt for the izakaya-style set menu for signature dishes like spicy beef tenderloin, and seabass with yuzu truffle oil and salmon roe.