The Best Places in Thailand

A row of steel lockers in an alleyway off Thonglor is the door, which tells you everything about the vibe inside this tiny speakeasy. The cocktail menu works through pop culture decades, so you might sip something with foam styled after a Troll doll's hair while Cyndi Lauper plays overhead. It's dark, a little absurd, and completely in on the joke. The Infatuation named it one of Bangkok's 20 best bars.

Wild honey sourced from gatherers across Thailand is the organizing principle of this cocktail bar on Rama IV, and the team takes that brief seriously. Every drink tests how far the ingredient can stretch before tipping sweet, which turns out to be further than expected. The beeswax mug holding the Eastern Honey is a prop worth keeping intact. Difford's Guide lists it, and The Infatuation put it on their Bangkok bar roundup.

Tiger-skin prints and bamboo furniture set the tone at this hotel bar inside Bangkok's Mandarin Oriental, where the house cocktail menu draws its flavors from Thailand's five regions. It's been a fixture of the city's live jazz scene for long enough that the sightlines to the stage feel deliberate. Stylish bartenders in leather aprons take it seriously, which helps, given that the room is already doing a lot of atmospheric heavy lifting on its own.

The name loosely translates to "curry bowl," which tells you most of what you need to know. This contemporary Thai restaurant sits in a dimly lit back alley off Charoenkrung, the kind of address you only find by having the right friend. The team trained under David Thompson at Nahm, and the monthly rotating menu shows it: Thai cooking nudged forward without being made unrecognizable. The curries anchor everything, as they should.

A cocktail bar on the 11th floor of the akyra Thonglor, where old typewriters and printing curios share space with a glassy, capsule-lit back bar and views of Bangkok glittering below. The mix of nostalgia and neon shouldn't work, but somehow the room holds it together. The drinks list pulls from Prohibition-era spirits, handled by a bartender who came up through Vesper, one of the city's more serious cocktail rooms.

A featureless door on Sukhumvit 31, a curtain to pull back, and suddenly you're in a candlelit two-storey shophouse cocktail bar named after a Chet Baker track, which tells you most of what you need to know. From the team behind Bangkok speakeasies Ku Bar and Sugar Ray, the room is retro-cosy and unhurried, built for long rounds and live jazz rather than anything louder. The 50 Best Discoveries list gave it a nod.

Sixth floor of an old office block on Charoen Krung, which is exactly the kind of place you'd walk past twice before a local grabbed your arm. Charmkrung is a Thai wine bar built around sharing plates, run by the team behind Charmgang, the Yaowarat spot known for its curries. The bar stools face an open kitchen that stays loud and busy well into the night, which is where you want to be sitting.

Each xiao long bao is folded exactly 18 times, which is either comforting or alarming depending on how you feel about consistency. This Taiwanese dumpling chain has been around forever and operates on a global scale, with its Bangkok outpost sitting inside Central Embassy. The room is canteen-bright and unfussy, the steamed pork dumplings are the reason to queue, and the slow-simmered chicken soup is a serious argument for broth.

You find this cocktail bar by walking through a sports bar and past a photo booth, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. The same team behind the hidden #FindTheLockerRoom set this one up, and the contrast is deliberate: velvet banquettes, leather seating, and a black marble bar replace whatever was happening out front. The menu pairs classics with Thai riffs, and the 50 Best Discoveries list has taken note.

You get in through a phone booth in a Bangkok back alley, which sets the tone pretty squarely. Inside, this cocktail bar is dressed as 1940s Havana, and the commitment runs deep: distressed walls, off-kilter frames, vintage couches, cigars, and Latin music doing all the heavy lifting. The cocktail list moves through pre- and post-revolution Cuba, with daiquiris at the center. A 50 Discovery pick.

An art deco villa where, after dark, light spills across a terrace of silk couches and the tropical garden fills with the sound of ice in cocktails. Ian Kittichai's fine dining restaurant draws on a deeply personal reading of Thai cuisine, shaped by early mornings at the wet market and years cooking far beyond Bangkok. It holds a spot on The 50 Best Discoveries list, which tells you the room takes the food as seriously as the atmosphere.

Bifold doors open onto koi ponds and jungle greenery, and on a warm Bangkok evening it's a setting that makes a strong argument for lingering. This is an elegant Thai restaurant inside the Jim Thompson Heritage Quarter, a compound dedicated to the American silk merchant and sometime spy who put Thai silk on the map. The kitchen turns out traditional Thai cooking with a modern edge, served at a pace that rewards you for not rushing.

Ten seats, all at the bar, and the cocktail list changes every week, so regulars treat each visit like a puzzle. This small Bangkok cocktail bar from the team behind Sugar Ray keeps things unhurried and a little nerdy, with chess boards, vinyl shelves, and a turntable doing most of the decorating. The drinks riff on classics without being smug about it, and the bar snacks are taken more seriously than they need to be. Book ahead.

A vinyl shop stocking 6,000 records is your actual entrance to this cocktail bar on the 30th floor of the Rosewood Bangkok. The conceit is a mid-century home recording studio filtered through Great Gatsby glamour: floor-to-ceiling sloping glass, two art deco lounges, and a spiral staircase up to a cigar lounge. Ask the DJ to spin whatever you pull from the shelves. A 50 Discovery from The World's 50 Best Bars.

A wall of photos, a fridge of drinks, and simple tables set the scene at this canteen-style Bangkok spot, where the cooking does all the talking. Chef Gigg Kamol draws on Thai and Chinese heritage to produce family-style dishes fired with real confidence, the kind of food that makes a nondescript room feel like exactly the right room. It earned a spot on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list and has kept the regulars coming back since.

Two lotus ponds sit at the center of the dining room, which tells you something about the pace expected here. This is a fine dining restaurant inside the Siam Kempinski, spinning Thai flavors through a molecular lens, the whole project dreamed up by a Danish chef who built the original in Copenhagen. Ornate teak ceilings, flickering with ceremony, frame dishes that are as theatrical as the room they arrive in.

A cocktail bar with a name this unhinged earns some goodwill before anyone orders a drink. Tucked inside the Octo Seafood Bar complex on Sukhumvit Soi 24, Sugar Ray went minimalist in its new digs but kept the looseness intact. Sit at the counter if you can; the bartenders reward the audience. Asian-inflected signatures lean on ginseng, pandan, and tea-infused gin. A 50 Best Discovery pick.

The London-born izakaya-style chain has planted its sixth flag inside the St. Regis, which tells you something about the clientele before you even sit down. Zuma is a buzzy, upscale Japanese restaurant where the menu leans into black cod, wagyu, and other ingredients that photograph well. The room is glamorous and the bill follows suit, but the food gives people genuine reasons to show up beyond the scene.

Neapolitan-style dough with a slight crunch at the bite is the calling card at this Italian pizza restaurant tucked into one of Bangkok's more polished shopping corridors. The menu runs from supplì and meatballs in tomato sauce through to full pizzas, with imported Italian ingredients alongside the best local produce. Ranked in the 50 Top Pizza World list, it draws a crowd that treats the fried starters as non-negotiable, which is pretty good advice.

Tucked down a lane off Sukhumvit Soi 36, L'Oliva splits its identity across restaurant, wine bar, and pizzeria without losing focus on any of them. The dough leans contemporary, with a puffed, assertive crust, and the menu runs from pasta and risotto through classic and gourmet pies. The wine list holds its own at prices that won't cause a scene. It ranked 20th on 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific, if you need a reason to make the detour.

The wood-fired oven takes up most of the room, which tells you immediately where your attention should be. This is a compact Bangkok pizza spot tucked into the Park Lane residential complex in Ekkamai, run by an American expat who followed love to Thailand and brought his dough obsession along. Naturally leavened crust with a pronounced char and real crunch, a daily menu built around what's good right now, housemade desserts, and a small single malt selection rounding things out.

Khorat cuisine is the draw here, a regional Thai style that most Bangkok restaurants quietly ignore. Baannok takes the characteristically sweet Northeastern cooking and dials it back just enough for a wider audience without losing the herbs and spice that give Isan food its edge. The wok-fried noodle dish with river prawn is a regular order for a reason. Book ahead, the room doesn't absorb walk-ins gracefully.

A large open-air Thai restaurant built over a pond, where the fish stay in the water until you order them. Tables spread across five waterside areas, live music plays at dinner, and a kids' zone in the garden means the whole family is accounted for. The menu runs family-style, heavy on fresh seafood, and the stir-fried prawns with shrimp oil have a following. A relaxed, generous place to eat well outside Bangkok.

The dining room at this Northern Thai restaurant runs to high ceilings, green leather booths, and pink walls lined with fine chinaware, the kind of setup that feels inherited rather than designed. The menu leans on family recipes, with noodles and roti standing in for rice. Streaky pork braised for two days in hang le curry is the thing to order. Michelin Guide listed.

Bamboo screens and candlelight on the terrace, cocktails poured until 1am, and a menu that hopscotches the globe without apology. Eat Me is a relaxed late-night restaurant in Si Lom where the kitchen leans on Thai ingredients but feels no obligation to cook Thai food. The chef has cooked under Marcus Samuelsson and Daniel Boulud, which explains the daring combinations, even if the mood stays firmly unhurried.

The blackboard changes daily, which is usually a good sign at a casual Thai restaurant in Chiang Mai. The chef sources ingredients from around the country and cooks with the kind of regional range you don't always find in one place. Outdoor seating adds to the low-key feel. If fresh Thai chillies are on the table, ask for extra; the kitchen takes heat seriously.

An Italian restaurant with nearly 400 bottles on the wine list, including a serious run of Barolo, and the name ("wine library") makes the priorities clear. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto a garden, which cuts the Bangkok business-district noise down considerably. The kitchen pulls from all regions of Italy, ingredients flown in from Europe, with risotto a recurring reason to linger over a second glass.