The Siam

The Siam has the air of a private collection that happens to take guests. Krissada Sukosol Clapp’s eye for Thai heritage and Art Deco, and Bill Bensley’s for theatre, produced a hotel of suites and 10 pool villas on the bank of the Chao Phraya, the rarest kind of Bangkok address: small, riverine and entirely personal, with a private pier where the boat comes in and grounds that keep the city out.

Suites start at 80 square metres with an Art Deco living area; the Courtyard and Riverside Pool Villas run to 130, each with a pool of its own. Chon Thai cooks the food of the country with conviction, Opium Spa works with Sodashi, and there is, improbably, a Muay Thai gym and a tattoo studio, because this is that kind of house.

The river as the front door

Bangkok’s traffic is legendary; The Siam’s answer is the Chao Phraya. The hotel keeps a private pier with its own boat access, so the Grand Palace, the temples and the old quarters arrive by water rather than by gridlock. Back at the hotel the same river is the view from the pool and the riverside villas, busy with barges and long-tails by day, black and lantern-lit at night. The Pier, the hotel’s riverside dining spot, makes the most of it. Few hotels in this city have a relationship with the river at all; The Siam is built on it.

Suites and 10 pool villas

The entry Siam Suite is 80 square metres, with an Art Deco living area, and the Garden View and River View suites share that scale; the Premier categories reach 100. The 10 villas are the collector’s items: six Courtyard Pool Villas and four Riverside Pool Villas of 130 square metres, each with a private pool, an open-air terrace and an internal garden, the riverside four with the Chao Phraya in view. Every interior is layered with Thai heritage and Art Deco in the house style, and none of them feels like a hotel room.

Chon Thai, then the eccentricities

Chon Thai serves the food of the country and is the dinner that comes first; The Story House and Bathers Bar take the other evenings. Opium Spa uses Sodashi products, has its own access to the river and sits beside an outdoor infinity pool. Then the eccentricities, which are the point: a fully equipped Muay Thai facility the hotel calls the first of its kind in Bangkok, and a tattoo studio. A hotel that offers a boxing session and a tattoo alongside a Sodashi facial has a point of view, and it is not shy about it.