Shanghai Mansion

Style and Character

The Shanghai Mansion offers the right balance between old world movie set feel and modern facilities. Retrofitted in classic 1930s Chinese style, the six-floor building is faultlessly decorated. It’s a little sensual without being vulgar, no mean feat in Bangkok.

Antique telephones, carved dragons, blood-red chandeliers, rich tapestries, intricate locks, wooden partitions, and plenty of pillars add to the perfectly executed ambience. The architectural centrepiece is a water garden in the atrium, a 50-foot (15-metre) long pond filled with plants and teeming with fish. Chinese-style lamps, covered in soft tone cloth hang from the ceiling six floors above and there’s an attractive seating area at one end of the pond.

Service and Facilities

Service is very friendly and forthcoming. Facilities are simple but adequate for a funky inner city hotel. The small spa has just three rooms and an open area for foot massages. A tiny library on the third floor offers a couple of quiet seating areas.

Rooms

Rooms are spacious and as exquisitely designed as the hotel’s common areas. Deep armchairs, four poster beds and compact but spotless bathrooms are all infused with the same stunning period feel (some of the bathrooms feature bird cages complete with fake doves).

Early 20th century-style lighting and heavy maroon curtains make up for the lack of windows to the outside world. Air-conditioning, TV, DVD player, a minibar whose modest contents are part of the room rate, a safe and a coffee maker and a Chinese tea set round off the picture.

Food and Drink

The Red Rose Restaurant serves good contemporary Chinese cuisine. The snow fish is delicious and the avocado ice cream in young coconut is a pretty daring dessert. Chinese whiskeys and plum wines round off a decent culinary experience. There’s live Jazz from Tuesdays to Sundays at the Shanghai Terrace which opens to busy Yaowarat Road, the perfect place for a pre-dinner drink. Small groups may rent a private bar space on the first floor, complete with traditional 1930s-style Chinese costumes.

Breakfast is served in the Cotton Club, a stylish restaurant space lined with portraits of Chinese ladies in repose. The buffet is modest but tasty, with a small choice of Asian (including dim sum) and Western offerings. Eggs in all shapes are à la carte.

Value for Money

Double rooms from 2,700 Baht (£63) year-round. Breakfast included. Free Wi-Fi.

Family-Friendly?

The only facilities for families are the connecting rooms.

Location

The Shanghai Mansion is located on Yaowarat Road, Chinatown’s main thoroughfare, which is lined with shops, pharmacies, restaurants and jewellers. In the evening countless street food stalls set up on the pavements. It’s a 10-inute walk to the Chao Phraya River from where a river ferry will take travellers to the Royal Palace in 15 minutes.

Sampaeng Lane, the historic heart of Chinatown is a 10-minute stroll away. Wat Trimit, the temple that holds the world’s largest solid gold Buddha, is just five minutes’ walk away. To Hualamphong, Bangkok’s main railway station and its adjacent underground station, it’s fifteen minutes on foot.