Anantara Riverside Bangkok: Why the River Changes Everything

Bangkok earned the nickname “Venice of the East” back when its residents got around by canal. These days, they get around by gridlock, which makes a boat the smartest amenity a hotel here can offer. Sitting on the quieter Thonburi bank of the Chao Phraya, the resort is the sort of place where a frazzled parent can exhale and a five-year-old can sprint without knocking over anything expensive.

What I found especially appealing for families is how getting around becomes part of the holiday. The resort’s complimentary shuttle boat links it to the BTS Skytrain network at Saphan Taksin, and then there’s ICONSIAM. The boat ride to the glossy riverside shopping and dining complex is infinitely more entertaining than a car journey through traffic.

A Grand Dame by the River

There are newer hotels in Bangkok with sharper rooms and more contemporary design. But this resort is not a newcomer and has the good manners not to pretend otherwise. Set amid 11 acres of tropical gardens, its 281 guest rooms and 95 suites display a slightly old-school character that modern Bangkok hotels sometimes deliberately engineer but rarely reproduce.

The resort wears its age the way a grande dame wears her pearls: with total confidence and a slight tilt. Makha wood floors, Thai silks, marble bathrooms with proper tubs, and private balconies announce old-school glamour. The proportions are generous, the mood is that of a diplomat’s residence circa 1992, and the overall effect is of a hotel that remembers when a lobby was built to be entered rather than photographed. In the Instagram era, where every new hotel seems determined to resemble a gallery, Anantara Riverside retains something of the old Bangkok grand hotel sensibility.

The real magic happens outside the room. Gardens lead towards the river, the pool serves as the inevitable family headquarters, and there are enough dining and recreational options to make staying put feel less like giving up on Bangkok and more like discovering another version of it.

Dinner, with a Little Theatre

Immediately after arriving, the evening’s most memorable family experience was Sala Lakorn, the resort’s riverside theatre restaurant. The restaurant combines an international barbecue buffet with The Echo of Thailand Symphony, an hour-long spectacle conceived by Manop Meejamrat, a recipient of Thailand’s Silpathorn Award. The current production uses classical Thai arts, contemporary staging, music, lighting, and visual effects to tell stories drawn from the kingdom’s cultural heritage.

Tiered seating curves around the stage like a classical amphitheatre. Flames leap from pillars, which is about as theatrical as a Venice of the East setting can get. Behind the stage, the Chao Phraya glimmers. The tropical night, washed by a passing rain shower during our visit, supplies the atmosphere, while the performance offers enough spectacle to hold younger diners’ attention as adults admire the craftsmanship at work.

Children don’t need a lecture on Thai cultural history when you can show them dancers, music, costumes, shadow theatre, and spectacle while they happily eat grilled seafood. Cultural engagement works better when nobody realises it’s happening.

When in Doubt, Eat Italian

Brio, the resort’s Italian restaurant, is the quieter act. The décor is styled after a Tuscan villa in terracotta and sandstone, an eccentric but charming transplant on the Chao Phraya.

The Angel Hair Frutti di Mare is the dish to order: lobster tails, clams, and prawns tangled with garlic, sun-dried tomato, and white wine. The result is sweet, briny, and refreshingly unabashed. The Bresaola Pizza is particularly difficult to argue with: crisp, savoury, and sufficiently grown-up for parents while still familiar enough to satisfy younger diners who have decided that pizza is a food group.

For something more indulgent, the Boscaiola Pizza combines porcini, Italian pork sausage, smoked cheese, and black truffle in several forms. It makes a persuasive argument that truffles should, occasionally, be allowed to run completely unsupervised.

Bangkok, but at River Speed

In a city that is constantly reinventing itself, there is something rather charming about spending a few days doing Bangkok the old-fashioned way: by water, and at a leisurely enough pace to let the family actually enjoy being there. What you get is space, a genuine sense of occasion, and a new way of looking at what many of us thought was a familiar city.