Over several years, from the age of six, I honed a sense of casual insouciance in the teeming streets and hidden sois of Silom, navigating the area’s frenzy of traffic and tourists with considerable brazenness. Even today, hustle-ready tuk-tuk drivers leave me alone. Back then, the areas beyond Lumpini Park and the illustrious Dusit Thani Hotel were off-limits. These two locations were the demarcation between the familiar and the ‘real’ Bangkok—or so I was told.
These seemingly inconsequential memories resurfaced during my walk-through of the new-build Dusit Thani Bangkok. Now a shimmering golden rectangular structure crowned by a gracious Thai minaret, the 257-key hotel blends 1980s glamour with Andru Fu’s understated yet unmistakable ‘new luxury’ treatment.
View more of the Dusit Thani Hotel
Currently, check-in takes place in the lobby, but it will soon move to the hotel’s club floor upon its opening. Here, Fu and the hotel’s owners have refined a design language that remains faithful to the former Dusit Thani’s revered Siamese spirit, interwoven with contemporary proportions and styling. For instance, a mural by Thai artist Sakon Malee portrays the hotel’s 50-year heritage, and its connections to Silom and Bangkok. Meanwhile, a modernist suspended-in-air screen-like bronze installation by projecttSTUDIO and Dong Sculpture, positioned by the elevators, accurately captures the essence of the past and present: the past may be gone, but the present can still draw inspiration from it.
To complete the artistic ensemble, two multi-hued pillars, salvaged from the hotel’s former Benjarong restaurant, serve as portals to the fabled ‘town in heaven’, from which the name Dusit Thani was coined. Fu’s exacting design eye extends to the guest rooms, each of which are no less than 50 sq m in size. These oasis-like spaces are surprisingly minimalist, doing away with over-the-top figurines or embellishments in favour of a thoughtful and restrained roomscape. Interiors are adorned with light jade and deep greens, complemented by majestic shades of rich gold and champagne. The result is a home-away-from-home setting, with the exceptional distinction of uninterrupted 4m glass sheet views of Lumpini Park from every room.
View more angles of the rooms at Dusit Thani
Downstairs, by the hotel’s Pavilion restaurant, the cascading water feature recalls memories of the former Dusit Thani’s outdoor garden-in-the-city setting, for those old enough to remember. So, too, is Dusit Gourmet where today’s six-year-olds can enjoy ice cream, while waiting for their parents to finish chatting, which remains a poignant sight.
At Pavilion, a new restaurant, nostalgia permeates both the ambience and the flavours. Offering both Thai and Chinese cuisines, Pavilion exquisitely blends the essence of the hotel’s former Benjarong and Mayflower restaurants. However, the food here confidently steals the spotlight from the retro-lux interiors.
Chef Rosarin Sriprathum, a true culinary ‘yai’ (grandmother in Thai), is a master of her craft, who, as legend (or rather, my tastebuds) has it, doesn’t even use MSG in her cooking. Yet her dishes, like the simple yet perfectly prepared stir-fried morning glory with garlic and the palate-pleasing southern yellow curry with grouper, left nothing on the plate. The homestyle Thai dishes at Pavilion often receive a luxurious upgrade—for instance, the wagyu salad with lemongrass, eggplant, and roasted sweet chili sauce, or the comforting bowl of bird’s nest cooked with almond milk and egg white.
Many from the Thai capital’s rarified social circles have returned to the Dusit Thani Bangkok, whether for celebratory birthday lunches or important business dinners. This is unsurprising, as a true classic, even in a new incarnation, never goes out of style.
