The Conrad Bangkok – A Review By Punam Mohandas
The Conrad Bangkok is located within the All Seasons Place complex, reasonably close to the Siam area which is the CBD and heart of Bangkok.
With 500- keys (109 of which are residences), the Conrad speaks of discreet luxury. A spacious lobby boasts of marble flooring and plush, scattered seating in fawn, complemented by silk throw pillows in aquamarine. The security at the hotel is equally discreet and unobtrusive; guests can only access the upper floors or the Executive Lounge by tapping their key cards on an electronic panel in the lifts or outside the Lounge.
Mirrored panels along wide corridors lead to the rooms, with exquisite Thai dragon artefacts placed along strategic points. The rooms are categorised as follows: Deluxe (41sqm); Premium (41sqm); Grand Premium (53sqm); Executive Suite (71sqm); Terrace Suite (102sqm); Conrad Premium Suite (114sqm) and the Presidential Suite (238-sqm).
I stayed in a Premium room, which was quite spacious, if plainly furnished. A circular table serves as the study desk, with an armchair; there’s a small settee and another, smaller round table beside it. It’s the bathroom that gets my vote, with a deep, wide, oval bathtub, separate rain shower cubicle and one of those fancy, Japanese WC’s that has a lot of push button options. It’s the small things that make all the difference and the Conrad holds true to that maxim by additionally providing a jet spray, as also a towel hook and a thoughtfully placed handle to hold onto while climbing into the bathtub, besides a rubber slipmat. Other amenities across room categories include an electronic safe, tea/coffee maker, minibar, magnifying mirror, weighing scale, Mojave Ghost toiletries, bathrobes and two bottles of complimentary drinking water.
The Conrad Bangkok offers a range of F&B options. Executive floor guests have access to the Executive Lounge which serves a limited breakfast range compared to the 114-covers Cafe@2 but some very welcome and tasty snacks during evening tea. The Lounge has plenty of seating, with well-lit, discreet ambience. There’s also a small fiction book collection for guests to browse through. The 75-covers (bar stools as well as armchair seating) Diplomat Bar at lobby level serves select finger food from around the world and also has a live band in attendance every night except Sunday. (Suggestion: the music is really too loud and, while the live performance is appreciated, the decibel level could be toned down.) City Terrace, the poolside bar with 41-covers including sunbeds, offers some really tempting snacks and attentive service, where guests can scan a QR code menu and then use a push bell to summon staff.
The most notable dining outlets are the Chinese restaurant Liu and the Japanese Kisara. When I dined there, Liu was all set for the Chinese New Year, beautifully done up with red hanging lanterns and the staff dressed in plain red cheongsams with intricately patterned short jackets. The 110-covers restaurant has tables and carved chairs in deep mahogany, superbly complemented by bright scarlet silk cushions. Liu also offers five PDR’s. The food is not just tasty, but very artfully presented by Hong Kong chef Andy Fung, with some unique fusion twists, such as batter fried shrimp with mango puree on a vol-au-vent, or the crispy noodles with delicate chicken slivers.
Kisara has more stark interiors, with black flagstone flooring complemented by blood-red anthurium flowers and serviettes folded like snails; the showpiece, of course, is the live teppenyaki station. This 103-covers restaurant also offers four PDR rooms with traditional, low style seating, albeit with high chairbacks for guest comfort. The food here is simply to die for and the smiling chef Naohisa Yamada, who, to his credit, didn’t bat an eyelid at me for not going in for the ubiquitous sushi/sashimi, can take several bows here! Everything I ate was cooked with great attention. The lobster was grilled to perfection, accompanied by delicately accentuated garlic fried rice. Pale yellow gingko nuts on tiny skewers came in a little crate, artistically done up to resemble an indoor garden.
Recreational facilities include a pleasant, meandering swimming pool, which is unfortunately surrounded by neighbouring buildings, but that can’t be helped. A small but splendid waterfall by the jacuzzi creates a cozy nook and the pleasing sound of rushing water goes a long way in making you forget you’re in a bustling city hotel. A few steps up from the pool is the outdoor tennis court.
Bodyworx is the well-lit and well-equipped gym on the same floor that also has a separate yoga studio. Adjoining this is the Seasons Spa with eleven treatment rooms, of which two are single, seven double and the remaining two are Thai massage rooms. All rooms apart from the latter two are en suite with bathrooms. There’s also a small relaxing room for guests to enjoy tea or other beverages post the treatment. The Spa offers various packages, with the signature massage being the Gem Body Bliss, which uses four types of oil and stones like amethyst, garnet, carnelian, rose quartz for the treatment. There’s also a rosemary and sage body scrub, that sounded hugely interesting.
Convention facilities include 22 meeting rooms and a pillarless ballroom at 818sqm which can accommodate 1,200 pax theatre style. The other rooms can handle anywhere between 70-320 pax theatre-style, while smaller rooms can take 35-40 pax and the boardrooms can handle 12-pax in schoolroom style. It goes without saying that there is free wifi across the hotel.
The Conrad Bangkok employs quite a few sustainable practices on its premises, such as having motion sensor driven lights and air conditioning that get automated only when it senses a human body in the room; this is so sensible, as many times guests either forget to switch off the air conditioning or else, wilfully leave it on the entire day.
There is a faint traffic noise in the rooms considering the hotel is near the pulse of the city, but it isn’t unduly overwhelming. While the boiler system works fine, the air conditioning needs to be looked into and could be more effective, especially at night. I found the Housekeeping and Front Office teams reasonably attentive. F&B service at the specialty Chinese and Japanese restaurants is particularly good, while the Lounge and Diplomat Bar teams seem a tad overcome at dealing with too many people at once.
As mentioned earlier, the Conrad Bangkok is located with the All Seasons Place complex, which also has a Tim Hortons and Starbucks outlets, as well as a shopping arcade. The hotel organizes a shuttle bus service to BTS Ploenchit every hour, which is only a couple of stations away from Siam. Popular shopping malls in the vicinity include Central, Central World, Gaysorn, Siam Paragon, Siam Centre, Siam Discovery, MBK and so on. Siam is also the main BTS station from where you can switch lines and travel on the dark green Silom line towards the Chao Phraya river.
While all major airlines have resumed flying into Bangkok now that travel restrictions that were in place due to the COVID have been lifted, please monitor the situation and check on requirements such as vaccination, quarantine and RTPCR tests, before you plan your trip.
CONRAD BANGKOK
Tel: +66 2 690 9999
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.conradbangkok.com
Punam Mohandas asserts her right to be identified as the author of this work. Any views or opinions expressed in this review is that of the author.