Some travellers insist on five-star amenities like a big swimming pool, capacious lobby and an army of bellhops — all standard features at luxury hotels around Bangkok. But for visitors who think that less is more when it comes to lodgings, the city now boasts some two dozen boutique hotels that emphasize qualities such as unique charm, personal service and good value for price. The growing list of boutique choices includes a variety of locations, atmospheres and levels of cost and comfort.
“Small is beautiful” is the essence of a boutique hotel. Hospitality experts like www.hotel-online.com say an inn should have no more than 100 rooms to be considered truly “boutique.” The rooms themselves are sometimes compact as well, but are designed efficiently in terms of floor plan and furnishings to squeeze more comfort and functionality from less space. Instead of a plump sofa and coffee table, you’ll find a sleek club chair. A shower compartment might substitute for a bathtub.
Public facilities, too, are trimmed down to essentials. A few of Bangkok’s boutique hotels have a small business centre, pool, mini-gym or spa, but most don’t. Instead of multiple restaurants, the boutique might run a simple bistro, but with quality fare. Some lodgings omit an in-house restaurant altogether, serving just a breakfast buffet in the lobby.
Most of Bangkok’s boutique inns offer a selection of three or four different types of rooms, from standard to suites. En suite features cater to functionality and convenience. Even a budget venue will offer free wireless internet, a flat-screen LCD TV, mini-safe and refrigerator. A high-end room will come equipped with a DVD player, perhaps even an espresso machine or iPod docking station.
Many of Bangkok’s boutique hoteliers claim to offer better value, delivering a four- or five-star experience at lower cost. But whether it’s an alluring design or a tempting price, the boutique approach seems to be filling up rooms here, judging from higher-than-average occupancy rates reported by many of these hotels. Caveat: the traveller who has to have boutique had better book early.
BOUTIQUE STYLE
Decor is essential to the boutique experience. Instead of the internationally standardized styles used in brand-name luxury hotels, Bangkok’s boutique inns tend to have design schemes that are more individual, often with witty local motifs, materials and colours. Rather than framed artworks, the rooms might be decorated in colourful graphics hand-painted directly on the walls. Or walls are simply left bare. The building itself might be an older structure that has been refurbished or restored to reveal its historic character. These stylistic features mean that boutique inns often get booked for photo shoots for magazine fashion spreads.
Stylistically, Bangkok’s boutique inns tend to fall into two main categories: minimal or Oriental. The minimal approach is an understated, chic style that is often associated with the so-called hip hotels: simple but luxurious textures and surfaces in calming neutral colours and earth tones. These rooms keep upholstery and cabinetry to a minimum to open up space and create a feeling of airiness. Examples in Bangkok include the Luxx, Sacha’s Uno, SilQ and S15. The inspiration behind this low-key style might owe a lot to Asian influences like the Zen aesthetic, but the decor sometimes omits overtly Oriental references.
Other boutique inns proudly wear Asian style on their sleeves. Neo-Chinese influences are celebrated at the Shanghai Mansion and MaDuZi. New takes on Thai design appear at Tenface, Seven and Reflections Rooms. Traditional Siamese style prevails at places like the Old Bangkok Inn and Chakrabongse Villa.
Beyond style, boutique inns sometimes offer advantages like prime locations in waterfront or historic districts. What follows is a quick, district-by-district look at most of Bangkok’s line-up of boutique lodgings.
BOUTIQUE DISTRICTS
SilQ Hotel
© SilQ Hotel |
Sukhumvit Road
As a magnet for business, shopping, nightlife and dining, Sukhumvit Road has naturally attracted boutique hotels. One that opens right onto the bustling avenue, at the corner of Soi 15, is S15, a chic, eight-floor hotel with 72 rooms, mini-gym and spa. The lobby is decked out in swanky designer furniture that hints at the minimal style used in guest rooms. Nearby on Soi 19 are two hotels with a kindred sense of understated cool at reasonable prices: Sacha’s Uno, with 56 rooms and ground-floor bistro, and the 40-room SilQ. |
On a nearby lane adjacent to Soi 19 is Fusion Suite, 35 rooms eclectically furnished in antiques and curios collected from around Asia and the world by its owner, a Thai architect. Interiors rich in rugged wood, steel and polished cement give the hotel a masculine mood; so does the old Harley-Davison motorcycle displayed in the lobby. The ground-floor cafe boasts a cigar lounge with leather sofas.
Equally eclectic, but more luxurious, is MaDuZi, two blocks away on Rachadapisek Road, which is decorated in antiques and handcrafted furnishings from Thailand, Vietnam and China. Cuisine is a highlight, thanks to a fine French restaurant that occupies much of the ground floor.
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Soi 31 has two boutique properties. The petite and fashionable Seven has six guest rooms, each proclaiming a different colour in hand-painted wall murals. Together with a shared space used as a lobby and lounge, the inn’s seven rooms represent the seven days of the week, each of which is assigned a different symbolic colour according to Thai tradition. Luxuriating deeper in the soi is the Eugenia Hotel Bangkok, with a dozen rooms in a colonial-style mansion with pool. Similarly elegant is the 24-room Ariyasom Villa, on Soi 1 near Bumrungrad Hospital. |
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The Sukhumvit area’s other boutique lodgings include the August Residence on Soi 31; Citichic Boutique Suites Hotel on Soi 13; and Bangkok Boutique Hotel on Asoke near the MRTA subway station at Petchaburi Road.
Ploenchit Road
Popular with diplomats, well-heeled shoppers and global business types, the prime neighbourhood around Ploenchit Road hosts two boutique hotels. Just off Lumphini Park on Lang Suan Road, the stylish Luxx XL has 50 rooms and a garden-enclosed swimming pool. Minimal interiors make it a hub for fashion shoots. A perky approach to the hip hotel is nearby on Soi Ruamrudee, at Tenface. With 79 rooms in a pair of eight-floor buildings, Tenface has a decor scheme inspired by the Thai mythical character of Tosakan, a giant with ten faces. A lap pool, fusion restaurant and lounge-style bar are extras.
Silom Road
Long the city’s main hub for entertainment, dining and shopping, the Silom Road area is packed with a variety of hotels, lately with boutique properties among them.
With 75 rooms, meeting facilities and a full business centre, Triple Two Silom bills itself as a “business class” boutique hotel; one special attraction is a ground-floor restaurant and bar with open-air seating directly on Silom Road.
The Luxx Decho has 13 rooms done in hip, pared-down style, nestled on Decho Road just off Silom Road. Nearby on Silom itself is a new, three-floor building built in colonial style that hosts the Heritage Baan Silom Hotel, with 36 rooms.
The moderately priced Baan Saladaeng, in a small lane off Soi Sala Daeng near Silom Road, has nine rooms, each designed in a different style ranging from Mediterranean to Moroccan to classic Thai. Guests meet and mingle at the ground-floor breakfast buffet.
A block away on Convent Road is the Swiss Lodge, with 57 rooms, a plunge pool and ground-floor café with open-air seating. A Swiss touch shows in features like solar-powered electricity and rooms engineered to be soundproof.
On Silom’s neighbouring Surawong Road, the Rose Hotel Bangkok has 70 guest rooms decorated in Asian contemporary style, accented with modern and contemporary Thai paintings and prints. Other features are a swimming pool and premium restaurant in a 100-year-old timber Siamese house. Also on Surawong is the Siam Heritage Hotel, with 73 rooms and big-hotel amenities like a pool and spa.
Chinatown, old city and riverside
Boutique lodgings fit naturally into the low-rise buildings that are prevalent in neighbourhoods that developed in the 19th century around the Grand Palace, in Chinatown and along the Chao Phraya River.
Three small inns make the most of waterfront sites along Maharaj Road near Wat Pho, with decor that looks to centuries past. The Arun Residence has just six rooms, but has become known for its restaurant and bar overlooking the water. The top-floor library lets guests enjoy expansive vistas along with a book and sunset coffee. Just half a block downriver is Aurum The River Place, a four-storey building with 12 rooms. The five units at Chakrabongse Villas are situated on the grounds of an early 20th-century heritage mansion. A garden and small swimming pool add to the hotel’s comforts.
The Old Bangkok Inn Hotel, on Phra Sumen road, offers ten rooms in an old shophouse building, with many temples and museums within walking distance.
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| On Chinatown’s main street, Yaowarat Road, the Shanghai Mansion features 76 rooms done in a jazzy Sino-European style, with a Chinese restaurant on the second floor. The brightly coloured retro decor makes it a romantic setting for weddings and receptions. |
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Other areas
The Sathorn Road area, home to banks and corporate headquarters, has at least one boutique offering. Baan Pra Nond Bed and Breakfast offers nine rooms in a 70-year-old townhouse with pool, close to the Surasak BTS Station.
In the Saphan Kwai neighborhood, the fun and funky Reflections Rooms takes a fresh approach to the art hotel, with 29 rooms decorated by young designers and artists, on Pradipat Road. A free tuk-tuk ferries guests to the nearby BTS Skytrain station at Saphan Kwai, while the city’s historic districts and Chatuchak Market are not far by taxi.
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Story by Rick Amherst |
