Cabochon Hotel

Style and Character

The Cabochon is a one-off, highly personal and stylish, particularly popular with design and art professionals, and makes for a personalised and intimate change from the larger downtown hotels. The Taiwanese owners have created a homely yet salubrious atmosphere. The hotel is furnished with beautiful antiques, inviting guests into an ambience that’s part francophone Indochina and part funky Shanghai-chic, though the stuffed animals that grace the walls might not be to everyone’s taste.

Service and Facilities

As this is a very small hotel, facilities are modest but more than adequate and the staff is helpful and genuinely friendly. The highlight is the Joy Luck Club, the hotel’s lounge, where guests may recline in deep leather chairs among countless antiques and baubles including a stuffed zebra’s head. The adjacent library room is tiny but the selection of books on design and art is excellent.

There’s a pool on the rooftop, 25 metres in length and unfeasibly narrow, which offers spectacular views of surrounding skyscrapers. The pool closes at 7pm, but is a great spot for sunset, with a drink in hand.

Rooms

There are just four rooms and four suites, as well as four residence units – self-contained serviced apartments with well-equipped kitchens, with two or three bedrooms. The standard rooms are a little on the small side, perhaps partly because the comfortable vintage-style beds are rather large. The rooms at the front of the building offer quiet and shady balconies, seemingly far from the hubbub of downtown Bangkok just a few meters away. TVs are politely hidden in glass cupboards and the lack of obvious technology reinforces the retrofitted ambience. Bathrooms are spotless and functional. Some come with beautiful copper bathtubs imported from Indonesia.

Food and Drink

The Thai Lao Yeh Restaurant serves elegant variations of authentic dishes from around Thailand, especially from Issan. Try the Somtam, a north east signature dish, a spicy papaya salad. The red duck curry with bitter eggplants is also recommended. There’s a good selection of reds and whites from Italy and France on the wine list.

Breakfast comes as a modest buffet with fresh juices, pastry and coffee, along with kongee and fish soup and plenty of à la carte choices. The Joy Luck Club Lounge is a great place to sip a cocktail beneath large model airplanes.

Value for Money

Double rooms from 5,200 baht (£125) in low season; from 6,200 baht (£141) in high. Breakfast included. Free Wi-Fi.

Family-Friendly?

Yes. Rooms and suites connect, a great option for families. The two-bedroom residence units will suit families who want independence and enjoy cooking.

Location

The Cabochon sits at the end of a small and quiet lane off Sukhumvit Road in downtown Bangkok, a short walk to Phrom Phong BTS SkyTrain Station, the Emporium shopping plaza, and the more up-market Em Quartier. It’s about a half hour by skytrain to the Chao Praya River, from where it’s a hop by ferry to the Royal Palace, Wat Po and Wat Arun.