The best hotel I ever stayed in!
Through my 60 years of worldwide peregrinations, from the days of living in a rundown room at the Parisian “Beat Hotel” of Mme. Rachou, to my days as marketing consultant to the Leading Hotels of the World when I stayed in some of the most historic 5-star luxury hotels of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, North and South America, and Asia, I have experienced as many luxury hotel properties as any world traveler has ever done.
Claridge’s, the Dorchester, the Connaught, and the Corinthia in London; the George V, the de Crillon, and the Ritz in Paris; the Pierre and the Peninsula in New York; the Peninsula and the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong; the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo; the Bauer Palazzo and the Sina Centurion Palace in Venice; and on and on. All have been absolutely fabulous hotels, but I place the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok above all others.
We arrived in Bangkok after a very long flight with a stopover at the Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG) in Paris. Whenever I have to fly with a stopover in Europe, I prefer CDG because I can still get genuine Caspian caviar at one of the duty-free shops. Expensive as hell, but still worth every penny spent for an ounce.
We were met inside the arrivals building by staff from the Mandarin Oriental, who whisked us through immigration and customs to one of the stately BMW autos that belong to the hotel. The drive from the airport to the hotel is still an “adventure” since Bangkok drivers are as aggressive as they have always been, and traffic congestion is endemic.
If you ask a local how long it will take to drive from one area to another, the answer will usually be “between 20 minutes to two hours depending on the traffic!”
The original building, now housing the Author’s Suites, was built in the mid-19th century as a boarding house for seafarers on the bank of the Chao Phraya river and reopened as a hotel in 1886. In 1891, King Chulalongkorn began using the hotel as a guesthouse for visiting royalty and heads of state.
In 1913, the Imperial & Royal Austro-Hungarian Legation in the Kingdom of Siam established its chancery at the hotel. Everyone who was somebody has stayed at the Mandarin Oriental when Thailand was still called Siam, and they still do.
What truly makes the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok a standout is the attention to detail and quality of service, which is second to none. In luxury hotel circles, it’s still considered the “standard” everyone tries to emulate. In many European and American luxury hotels, the staff to guest ratio is, at most, one-to-one. A few Asian luxury hotels have a two-to-one ratio. At the Bangkok Mandarin Oriental, the ratio is still three-to-one.
Today, the hotel uses the original building plus a hotel tower built in 1958, which is called “The Garden Wing,” as well as a third tower building erected in 1976 called “The River Wing.” The Garden Wing and The River Wing buildings are ingeniously interconnected, though they look from the outside like two independent structures.
The towers contain the majority of the rooms, modern suites, bars, restaurants, exquisite public spaces, and executive offices. They are offset at the back of the garden, facing a large terrace that also serves as an open air dining room fronting the river.
The original building, now over 140 years old, has been completely refurbished and is called “The Author’s Wing.” It has the Author’s Suites, which consist of 12 river-facing suites with private balconies, all named after famous writers that stayed in the hotel during the years. It’s surrounded by the tropical garden and is mostly hidden behind trees.
Three hundred of the hotel’s rooms have been refreshed with an interior that merges traditional Thai elements with modern amenities like Bluetooth speakers and Nespresso machines. The river views of many rooms have gotten even better thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows, some of which open onto balconies.
If you are a frequent or honored guest, there will be bilingual (English/Thai) stationery and business cards waiting for you on the desk in your room. Another lovely touch is that if you use the hotel’s laundry, your clothing gets returned wrapped in Mandarin Oriental wrapping paper with an orchid flower on top!
Across the river is the “Sala Rim Naam,” a restaurant that offers classic Thai dishes plus a spectacular folkloric show. Signature dishes are Goong Phad Prig Daeng (fried prawns with garlic and red chili sauce), Ped Toon Nam Ma-Kham (duck in tamarind sauce), and of course, spectacular carved fruit, an ephemeral Thai artistic endeavor. Also across the river from the hotel is the Spa and the Oriental Thai Cooking School.
Kurt Wachtveitl, one of the best known and very highly respected hotel General Managers, managed the hotel for 42 years. I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Wachtveitl in the very early 1990s when I stayed at the hotel a number of times. It was due to his leadership that it attained the exceptional position to be considered as “the very best luxury hotel East of the Suez Canal” providing the most gracious hospitality in the Asian hotel industry.
On one of those visits, I also met Executive Chef Norbert Kostner, another industry leader. He made sure all of the hotel’s restaurants provided immaculate service and exceptional food. He also turned the kitchen of the 2 Michelin-starred “Le Normandie” (the hotel’s haute cuisine restaurant) into one of Asia’s top eateries and the hotel into a destination for gourmets. He was given the Grand Maitre du Goût (Grand Master of Taste) award by the Academy of Taste.
His motto was “You don’t need a cook to serve caviar. To roast a chicken, and get it moist and tender and crispy, you need a cook.” Wise words!
Nick A. Ross, a regular contributor to LuxuryWeb Magazine, is a retired banker who has eschewed retirement in London for adventure in Southeast Asia. He is currently based in Singapore after spending the last seven years in Guam. He did a “reverse Paul Gauguin, and he is not even French!” He now spends much of his time in Bangkok, Taipei, Hong Kong (when there are no riots), but he still visits the eastern Mediterranean in the summer whenever he has the opportunity. He loves traveling, good food, and good wine, and he enjoys the serendipities of life as they come along.
Manos Angelakis is one of the founders, the former Managing Editor for 25 years, the current Managing Editor Emeritus, and Senior Food & Wine Writer of LuxuryWeb Magazine. He is an accomplished travel writer, photographer, and food and wine critic based in Hackensack, New Jersey. As a travel writer, he has written extensively about numerous cities and countries. Manos has also been certified as a Tuscan Wine Master and has traveled to wine-producing areas in order to evaluate firsthand the product of top-rated vineyards. In the past year, he has visited and written multiple articles about Morocco, Turkey, Quebec City, Switzerland, Antarctica, and most recently the South of France. Articles in other publications include Vision Times and Epoch Times.
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