Four Seasons Bangkok Review
A Michelin star, an award-winning cocktail bar, and creativity in abundance. There’s plenty to admire about this new luxury hotel.
A cream bun for breakfast might not be a dietitian’s recommended choice but when executive chef Andrea Accordi introduced maritozzi during lockdown at Four Seasons Bangkok Hotel, they swiftly became a citywide sensation. Boxes of these wicked Italian treats were flying out the hotel doors and were soon widely copied, thanks to the property’s on-point social media team; they even popped up in 7-Eleven convenience stores.
The 299-room Four Seasons Hotel at Chao Phraya River opened just three months before Covid struck. With the snooze button hit, innovative take-out fare became the stock in trade for the hotel’s top-flight dining venues.
If there’s any upside to this enforced hiatus, it’s provided ample time to refine operations at this elegant riverfront “urban resort” where the soaring public spaces double as a contemporary art gallery and the six restaurants and bars are swiftly establishing as leading culinary citizens in the surrounding “Creative District”.
Like much of Asia, Bangkok is slowly waking from a pretty massive Covid hangover. Tourists are thin on the ground (selfishly, I have to say this is a delight) and while we’ve been away, the broad murky Chao Phraya River, snaking through the vast capital, has become a magnet for cool. Alongside entrepreneurs and restaurateurs, artists and creatives returned from living overseas during Covid have gravitated towards the delightfully ungentrified riverfront neighbourhood next door to the new hotel.
I love having a view of the ever-changing Chao Phraya and when Bangkok returns to its insanely hectic self, the concept of an urban sanctuary where guests can catch their breath, have a swim, hit the gym, or settle into a quiet garden nook makes absolute sense. Part of a larger riverfront development that includes private residences, the Four Seasons comprises an enclave of tiered buildings wrapped around a large, terraced water garden stepping down to a pair of swimming pools and waterside promenade. The feeling is almost continental, the plantings may be tropical – frangipani and great palms with shovel-like leaves – but that sense of a serene enclosure reminds me of an Italian villa. Linked ponds and reflecting pools speckled with lotus provide a quiet place to stroll; soaring walls of glass connect the lounges and lobby with the gardens.
Indoors, designers worked with local galleries to source large-scale canvases that draw the eye down the hotel’s long and impressive enfilade of public spaces. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) has partnered on a dedicated gallery and a current exhibition of street artists is proving hugely popular. The local contemporary scene is running hot. “The closest on the planet to New York but even more dynamic,” says exhibiting Bangkok-based US painter Gary Gagliano.
Art and food underpin the Four Seasons’ strong links with its neighbourhood; 80 per cent of restaurant business is local and, accordingly, pricing is very good value. In the elegant lobby lounge, it’s Thai under chef de cuisine Anchalee Ponrungsit (I recommend the duck curry); there’s also a patisserie, and elegant French brasserie, passing the roast chicken test with flying colours, and serving delicious French oysters. Yu Ting Yuan, the hotel’s high-end Cantonese, recently scored a Michelin star. Italian-born executive chef Accordi oversees all six restaurants but is most at home in the riverfront Riva del Fiume Ristorante where the superior breakfast buffet is also served. In the evening, alongside seriously good wood-fired pizzas you’ll find a sensational vitello tonnato, sea bream carpaccio and Australian tenderloin served with a wicked bone marrow gratin.
The renaissance of Bangkok’s riverfront includes a commensurate mushrooming of small bars. At Four Seasons, the dapper Philip Bischoff is in charge of tipples, overseeing the chic BKK Social Club, taking top honours for Thailand in Asia’s Best Bars 2022 awards. Recalling the glamour of 1930s Buenos Aeries (pack a beaded frock), the bar is all moody lighting, glittering crystal and giant palms. Svelte waitstaff decked in velvet smoking jackets proffer leather-bound cocktail lists and the drinks have a distinct Argentinian flavour. The rum-based Evita is served in a dainty coupe with a glittering diamond-shaped ice cube. Like Singapore, Bangkok is a bit of a cocktail laboratory of weird extractions, foams, fumes, and smoke.
Every evening, Bischoff hosts a complimentary cocktail masterclass for guests and has plenty of suggestions if you want to head out for the evening. The new Mahaniyom is at the cutting edge; trailblazing Ronnaporn “Neung” Kanivichaporn incorporates squid ink, blue cheese, even beef fat in his cocktails. Or venture to Opium on level four of an old shop-house in Chinatown. Take the long climb up narrow stairs (avoiding the rather terrifying shoebox sized elevator) past the hip new Restaurant Potong, helmed by rising star Thai-Chinese-Australian chef Pichaya (Pam) Utharntharm). In the tiny bar there’s smoke under domes and plenty of dry ice action, plus late-night snacks of soupy rice with pork.
Early morning, any minor cocktail-lag can be sorted in the Four Seasons’ epic wellness centre, opening progressively and due to be fully completed in a couple of months. Elegant treatment rooms are augmented by a fancy barber, luxury medi-pedi stations where the basins resemble Louis Vuitton trunks and a large swimming pool, allowing for proper laps. The gym is enormous and includes a Muay Thai (Thai boxing) ring with personal trainers on hand. Shout out to the lovely Meena who administers the spa’s signature massage that includes the use of a bamboo rod, wielded like a rolling pin but much more pleasant than it sounds.
All guestrooms are spacious and user-friendly, with a chaise-longue set at the window and an oversized TV serving as a small dividing wall. Behind this is a full (rather than mini) bar and fridge stocked with local goodies. The spa-style bathroom has sliding walls and features a big tub. The overall tone is urbane with an emphasis on understated luxury and on-the-ball housekeeping. Charger cords are corralled and tidied, a cleaning cloth is left (perhaps as a suggestion) beside my grubby reading glasses.
Through floor to ceiling windows, I watch early-morning barges pulled by little tugs half submerged with the effort of their task, and late-night wedding fireworks. And the river provides ready access to the swanky ICONSIAM shopping centre (a shuttle boat operates from the hotel). Or book a sunset tour aboard a classic mahogany Hacker-Craft.
Sipping champagne while cruising by temples and pagodas feels like being on a Venetian canal if it were not for the growling long-tail boats flying by and the sudden monsoonal downpour.
“Bosses rain”, it’s called locally, generally arriving at around 5pm just as workers are attempting to leave for home. Back at the Four Seasons kindly staff await with towels, umbrellas, and the promise of pots of tea. An “urban resort” and true oasis in this always surprising city.
More to the story
The Creative District fans off historic Charoenkrung Road, in neighbourhoods bypassed by high-rise development. Old shophouses, rusting warehouses and teak mansions, squeezed cheek by jowl along the sois, or laneways, which carry breezes up from the river, are now home to galleries, cafes, funky little stores, and a burgeoning street art scene. Australian expat David Robinson, with a background in broadcasting (formerly at SBS) and NGO work, has been a key player in the revitalisation of this exciting enclave and says today it provides a beguiling combination of young artists and creatives moving in alongside long-time residents adapting to the new scene. One example is Mother Roaster, above an old mechanic’s workshop, run by 70-year-old Pim who offers barista training for seniors. In a 200-year-old rice warehouse, Hong Sieng Kong operates as a gallery cafe crammed with antiques, the roots of old banyan trees slowly consuming ancient brickwork Angkor Wat-style. Other creative citizens include a Belgian couple fashioning beautiful furniture from reclaimed Ming dynasty floorboards and a chap making traditional paper lanterns (a dying art form); there’s even an old-fashioned Aussie milk bar serving lamingtons. A Japanese munitions storage facility now houses the vintage stores and galleries of Warehouse 30. At ATT19, sisters Mook and Cher, who grew up in the neighbourhood, run a large gallery and cafe, championing local artists, and have provided several pieces for the Four Seasons.
In the know
Rooms at the Four Seasons Bangkok Hotel at Chao Phraya River from THB13,000 ($530), plus taxes. The concierge team organises guided walking tours of the Creative District or long-tail boat tours to unspoilt Kudeejeen, where elaborate temples, mosques and creaking old Portuguese houses are squeezed together along tiny laneways. The Thailand Pass for arriving international visitors has been scrapped and mask mandates are expected to be eased soon.
Christine McCabe was a guest of Four Seasons Bangkok Hotel.