Pad Thai Can Wait: A Vegetarian's Real Guide To Bangkok

Europe can wait. Between the general uncertainty and the creeping sense that every "hidden gem" has already been Instagrammed into submission, the East has quietly become the more interesting answer. Bangkok, specifically, has been the answer for a while now. Those of us who've been going know this, but it bears repeating for anyone still on the fence. The food, the bars, the sheer momentum of the city: it doesn't feel like a trend, it feels like a correction.

Now, the vegetarian thing. Bangkok is not the city people assume it is on this front. The assumption usually held by people who haven't been is that you'll be navigating around meat at every turn, making apologetic requests, and living off mango sticky rice. That assumption is wrong, and this is the guide that says so plainly. The only real tip you need before any of this: do not rely on online menus. They are, almost universally, incomplete. Half the best vegetarian eating in Bangkok will never make it onto a website. Ask anyway. You'll be surprised more often than not.

Where to Eat?

The Thai Classics, Done Properly

Sri Trat is where you start. Fully vegetarian menu, no asterisks, no negotiating and the green Thai curry is a reminder of what the dish is actually supposed to taste like before it gets adapted for everyone else. It's the kind of place that doesn't need to announce itself.

Baan Khanitha & Gallery operates in a similar world, with a full vegetarian menu, beautiful setting, and the wing bean salad is the kind of thing you'll think about on the flight home. Blue Elephant is a classic for a reason, and classics in Bangkok tend to earn that status rather than inherit it.

Issaya Siamese Club is best approached as a long brunch rather than a quick lunch. Order the Naaroon, order the papaya-pomelo salad, and don't rush it. May Veggie Home sits at the other end of the planning spectrum entirely: fully vegan, entirely casual, the sort of place you walk into without a reservation and walk out very happy. In a city where the best tables require forward thinking, that kind of ease is its own luxury.

Then there's Gaggan at Louis Vuitton, experiential in the truest sense of the word, and worth every bit of effort it takes to get a table. If reservations are full, the LV pop-up is genuinely worth doing in its own right. Don't write it off as the consolation prize.

When You Need a Break from Thai

This will happen. It always does, usually around day three or four, and there's no shame in it. Saneh Jaan is a Michelin-starred restaurant with a separate vegetarian menu, a detail that seems small until you realise how rare it is to be fully considered rather than accommodated. For Japanese, Zuma. For Italian on an evening when you want something quieter and more familiar, L'Oliva. And for Dior Café? Book ahead, arrive without hunger-induced impatience, and let the coffee and desserts be the entire point. They are.

Where to Drink?

Bar Us requires a reservation, which should tell you something. Go for the savoury cocktails, resist the urge to order something safe, and accept that the evening will go longer than planned. Vesper and Le Du Kaan are the other constants; both earn their place on any serious Bangkok bar itinerary without having to try particularly hard. Rabbit Hole has a taco cocktail that sounds like a marketing idea and turns out to be genuinely excellent. These things happen.

For altitude, the Waldorf Astoria rooftop delivers everything you'd expect from a rooftop bar in Bangkok: the skyline, the drinks, and the particular kind of satisfaction that comes from being very high up in a very busy city. BKK Social Club has a room that does a lot of heavy lifting. The ambience is excellent even when the cocktails are merely fine, which is its own kind of achievement.

Bamboo Bar at the Mandarin Oriental operates at a different frequency entirely, slower, more considered, the kind of classic room that makes Bangkok feel like it has been glamorous for a very long time, because it has. Go when you want the city to feel like it's being narrated by someone who really knows it. Opium in Chinatown is beautiful in the way that only spaces with real intention behind them are, and are owned by the same owners as Potong, with the same eye for what a room should feel like. Worth going to even if you only stay for one drink and then spend the rest of the evening talking about how good the space was.

Where to Stay?

The Ritz-Carlton, and specifically, ask for a room with a balcony. This is not a minor preference, it genuinely changes the relationship you have with the city, particularly in the early mornings and late evenings when Bangkok does its best work. For something entirely different in register, Capella on the riverside is stunning in the kind of way that makes you slow down involuntarily. It sits a little outside the centre of the action, which, depending on the trip and the person, is either a drawback or precisely the point. Both are valid answers.

Bangkok rewards the kind of traveller who doesn't need everything explained to them. This is a city that assumes you're keeping up, and the good news is that if you're reading this, you probably are.

Some cities you visit. Bangkok is one you return to, usually sooner than you planned.