If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (THB3,461.54), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Public House Bangkok is the sort of definition-defying space which encourages you to be endlessly sociable, with Seventies and Eighties-inspired interiors which will have you snapping away to share on social. The crowd is cool and creative, and the multiple hangout spots are equally hip – visiting artists, musicians and fashionistas mingle in the co-working Forum, share ideas in the Podcast Lounge, and plan their parties in the Flexi-Room event space. Recharge your social batteries in the industrial-chic rooms, up by the rooftop pool or helipad-turned-wellness zone, and feed your imagination with grill-cooked comfort dishes and Thai street food with a twist. All the added extras make you feel like an exclusive club member, but the best part is that it’s all Public – no membership needed.
Noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 2pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £87.48 (THB4,050), including tax at 17 per cent.
More details
Rates exclude breakfast, but guests can enjoy an all-day breakfast menu (eggs any-way, avocado and mushroom on toast, açaí bowls, coconut sundaes, and mango sticky rice) for THB490 each.
Also
The hotel’s ground-floor restaurant and lobby are wheelchair-accessible, and there are specially-adapted rooms for guests with mobility issues.
At the hotel
Helipad, bikes to borrow, co-working space, podcast lounge, DJ booth, yoga deck (and mats on request), art exhibitions, boutique, charged laundry service, plug adaptors, and free WiFi. In rooms: air-conditioning, smart TV, Bluetooth bedside-table speaker and charger, minibar, herbal tea-making kit, Nespresso machine, flip-flops, and Charcoalogy bath products.
Our favourite rooms
The mid-century-modern rooms and suites at Public House have an air of industrial New York about them, which embrace metal-heavy materials and a minimalist aesthetic. If you’d like some tub time, there are deep, spa-style baths in the one-bedroom suites; for balcony-lounging, we’d opt for the Premier Corner Room with its own terrace (yoga mats at the ready).
Poolside
Not quite on lunar-level, but skimming Bangkok’s skyline, the Mooon’s rooftop saltwater pool (open daily from 8am to 10pm) is a chic above-the-city retreat for cooling dips and mango mai tais. Lounge on palm-printed day-beds (which cleverly convert into chairs and side tables), and tuck into Thai street food-inspired snacks between swims.
Spa
There’s no spa onsite, but the hotel has local wellness brands Rlax and Oasis on speed-dial for all your downtime needs. You’ll just need to book your treatments three to five days in advance via the hotel. When it’s not welcoming guests by air, the hotel’s helipad transforms into a sky-high space for yoga, pilates, meditation, and Thai boxing.
Packing tips
Bring something star-spangled to boogie in, the hotel’s DJ sets get most guests on their feet every Friday and Saturday night (7pm to 10pm).
Also
Comfort food, recording kit, and broadband-boosted video chat: welcome to the Podcast Lounge at Public House. Book your soundproofed studio session in, grab a mic, and let the conversation (and tropical cocktails) flow.
Children
Welcome, but the hotel is more of a hip hangout for creatively-inclined couples. There’s no lifeguard on duty, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on little ones by the pool.
You’ll love the rooftop tables to the Mooon (and back), for the city views and proximity to the pool.
Dress Code
Dress to dazzle (ideally, like a disco ball). You’ll be mingling with a creative, club-going crowd so plan every outfit to be party-or-pool-ready.
Hotel restaurant
More of a social hub than a restaurant, Fest (open daily from 7.30am to 10pm, and until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays) is an all-day gathering place on Public House’s ground-floor. Electric-blue banquettes branch off from the open kitchen, where garlic flatbreads and jerk chicken sizzle on the charcoal grill, and vegan pizzas are paddled out from the wood-fire oven. The extensive menu is a love letter to comfort food, but the chef’s top picks are highlighted as ‘Public Treasures’, like the Josper-grilled flat-iron steak, and hamachi salmon slathered with wasabi and sriracha mayo. You can also enjoy Fest favourites poolside up at The Mooon rooftop until 5pm – after dusk, Thai street-food classics (coconut-marinated chicken satay skewers, beef sliders in mini brioche buns, and Northern Thai-style sai oua spicy sausages) are cooked over a flaming robata grill and Binchōtan charcoal.
Hotel bar
It’s glitzy, it’s glamorous, it’s almost a bit Gatsby (if he’d had a Bangkok base). Also gracing the ground floor, the Open Bar shakes and stirs a superb selection of cocktails (pineapple mojitos, gin basil smashes, and classic negronis all feature), as well as serving up wines and spirits to suit every taste.
Last orders
Breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner options are available all day, from 7.30am to 10pm.
Room service
Dial ‘zero’ to have Fest favourites brought to your room between 7.30am and 10pm.
Bagging one of the best spots in Bangkok’s upscale shopping district of Sukhumvit, Public House is in the city’s cosmopolitan centre.
Planes
Suvarnabhumi International is around 40 minutes’ drive from the hotel (traffic dependent), the city’s hub for long-haul and domestic flights. The hotel offers airport transfers for 1,500 THB (one-way).
Trains
Within easy walking distance of the BTS Skytrain (10 minutes away) and the MRT Sukhumvit Asok line (15 minutes away), the hotel is well connected to Bangkok’s overground and underground railways. You can also hop on the Airport Rail Link from Suvarnabhumi to Phaya Thai BTS station (served by the Skytrain) or Phetchaburi MRT station (on the metro).
Automobiles
Unless you want to spend most of your time stuck in traffic or swerving tuk-tuks and tourists, we’d avoid driving in Bangkok. If you are coming with a set of wheels, you can reserve a space in the hotel’s underground parking ahead of your stay.
Worth getting out of bed for
Public House likes to think outside the box when it comes to keeping guests entertained. Its ever-changing events calendar could see you sipping herbal brews in a tea workshop, getting inked by vintage-tattoo artists (or just learning how to sketch, tattoo-style), and taking a The Hangover II-inspired tour of the infamous filming spots. There’s always something artsy going on, whether it’s an anime exhibition, graffiti display, or meet-and-greets with local artists.
Beyond the hotel’s multi-sensorial walls, Bangkok’s bustling district of Sukhumvit is on your doorstep. Set aside a few hours for some retail therapy at EmQuartier, a luxury shopping mall which is home to designer stores and more affordable brands – or Terminal 21, an airport-themed complex where you can shop your way around London, Paris, Rome, and more international hubs (with eateries to match each destination on every level). Stroll between Nana BTS and Asok BTS stations every evening (from 5pm to midnight) to browse the Nana Market stalls (also known as the Sukhumvit Street Market) for souvenirs, before hitting one of the many swanky clubs along Sukhumvit Road. You might be in a skyscraper-scattered area known for its nightlife and shopping scene, but amidst the high-rises you’ll find Kamthieng House Museum – a renovated teakwood house which gives visitors a glimpse into rural Thai living. Another tranquil spot to escape the city’s chaos is Benjasiri Park, with its leafy walkways, lake, and sculpture-dotted grounds.
Local restaurants
You might recognise Bo.Lan from Netflix’s Chef’s Table series, a much-celebrated restaurant which elevates Thai street food and traditional home-cooking to edible art. The restaurant closed during the pandemic, but reopened as a food centre with a kitchen entirely supplied by local farmers, fishermen and foragers. A limited number of tasting menus are released each month, so you’ll need to book ahead. As its name suggests, Cuisine de Garden Bangkok is a nature-inspired restaurant with woodland-themed interiors (exposed tree-trunks, twinkling fairy lights in dangling branches) where Nordic, French and Thai flavours are brought together on whimsically styled plates. The tasting menus change with the seasons, just be sure to save room for something sweet, like the Amazake ice-cream drizzled with Japanese honey and fruits of the forest.
Local cafés
Chic Okonomi café in Soi Sukhumvit 38 champions Japanese minimalism, simplicity, and mottainai (‘no waste’). The generously-portioned breakfast bowls (shoyu-koji salmon, an onsen egg, mizuna, and other Japanese herbs on a bed of multi-grain koshihikari rice) are a seriously wholesome way to start your day.
Local bars
Bangkok is buzzing by day, but really comes alive after dark – especially in upbeat Sukhumvit, with its go-go bars and red light districts. One of the swankiest rooftop spots in the city, Marriott’s Octave Rooftop Lounge & Bar towers 40-something floors above trendy Thonglor. Graze on prawn sliders and torched ponzu-marinated salmon scattered with sesame and wasabi flakes, washed down with fruit-packed cocktails.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this hip urban hotel in Sukhumvit and unpacked their herbal balm and bamboo mats, a full account of their shop ‘till you drop break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Public House in Bangkok…
You’ll undoubtedly utter The Hangover II refrain, ‘Bangkok has him now’ at some point during your stay at Public House Bangkok – not least because the hotel’s ‘belong to the city’ slogan will have you cancelling your return flight. This feeling of belonging, of total immersion in the city (and never wanting to leave), has been ever-so-carefully crafted by owners Paul and Angie Sachdev, who designed Public House to be a springboard for Sukhumvit’s soi (side-streets). The husband-and-wife team expect the hotel’s concept to be shaped by however their creatively inclined guests wish to use the social spaces, which, like Bangkok, changes from one day to the next. DJ-spinning dance parties, interactive art exhibitions, out-there podcast sessions, and late-night cocktail workshops are all on the table, fuelled by exactly the sort of food and drink your jet-lagged self craves day and night. Social butterflies can get some shut-eye in the minimalist, mid-century-modern crash pads – some of which dial up your down-time with soaking tubs and above-the-bustle balconies. And don’t worry, like every plot-hinging Hangover scene, there’s a cinematic rooftop to hangout on.
