Bangkok's 7 best Thai bars and restaurants

This small Isan kitchen near Phahon Yothin runs on recipes from Nakhon Phanom – the kind that carry a real fermented depth and a seasoning hand you simply cannot replicate – and the room it operates out of doubles as a proper listening bar. Vintage furniture, stacked vinyl crates, a scatter of collected objects on every surface: it lands somewhere between a regular's den and a record collector's flat. The turntable moves through jazz, hip-hop, reggae, luk krung and Thai classical, all played to a room that's usually mid-bowl of nam tok and nodding along to something from 1974.

StudioLarb 2/9 Phahon Yothin Rd., Phaya Thai. Open daily except Wed 5pm-midnight. Tel. 064 586 6029

Bar Luk Krung Ari’s concept is built around old Bangkok – the city as it sounded and felt in an earlier era – translated into a cocktail bar that takes Thai spirits seriously and uses luk krung music as the main atmospheric thread rather than background filler. The drinks are made from local Thai liquors, mixed with enough craft and intent that ordering feels like the right starting point for the night. Live music runs Wednesday to Saturday from 8pm, and the Thursday sessions in particular have built enough of a following that the room fills with people who came specifically for them. 

Ari, Sam Sen Nai, Phaya Thai. Open Tue–Sun 5pm–midnight. Live music Wed–Sat from 8pm. Tel. 082 114 6339

Nang Loeng is one of those Bangkok neighbourhoods that fell between the gaps of the city's redevelopment and came out the other side with its character intact – old shophouses, a weekend market, the feeling that time moves at a slightly different speed. Ssound Namm sits at the Chakrabongse intersection and slots into all of that. The concept is a small vinyl cafe using coffee, Isan and luk krung records, and a very deliberate sense of atmosphere to tell a story about where Thai music came from and what it still sounds like when you slow down enough to hear it. Wooden furniture, the smell of fresh filter coffee, a rare mor lam pressing running low on the speakers. Snacks and ingredients come from local producers, which feels genuinely considered rather than a box being ticked. You go in for a coffee and leave an hour later than you meant to.

Ssound Namm Chakrabongse Intersection, Pom Prap Sattru Phai. Open daily except Wed 9am-6pm. Facebook: Ssoundnamm

Silom has no shortage of places to get a drink. What it didn't have, until recently, was anything quite like Sala Saneha – installed across multiple floors of a 70-year-old building on Decho Road, the original structure left largely intact and better for it. The third floor runs a 25-seat standalone cinema with its own programming. Below that, a wine bar and library with over 2,000 bottles from around the world plus a selection of Thai spirits worth working through. The food takes its cue from the Western dishes that drifted into Thai life during the eighties and nineties – European comfort food seen through a local lens, served without ceremony. The whole place has the feel of someone with very specific, very particular taste having decided to build exactly the space they wanted. That's not a criticism.

Sala Saneha 9/1 Decho Rd., Bang Rak. Open Thu–Mon 6pm–midnight. Tel. 063 946 8385

There's a version of Isan food that gets refined until the point vanishes. MUAN Bangkok is emphatically not that. The kitchen is committed to the real thing – fermented fish sauce with actual funk, larb with heat and herbs in the right proportions, green papaya salad that does what it's supposed to do. The room, on the third floor near Saphan Khwai, has been set up to look like a Bangkok side street after dark: zinc-panel walls, overhead cables, a food cart positioned just so. When the live band kicks in, the energy shifts up a gear. Later, the DJs take over and keep it going.

MUAN Bangkok 3rd Fl., Phahon Yothin-Ari (next to Vimut Hospital), Phaya Thai. Open Tue-Sun from 7pm.

TEP has been on Soi Nana since 2015, making the case that Thai classical music belongs in a bar where people are drinking seriously and having a good time. The argument holds. The live lineup rotates through different Thai classical and folk ensembles. The cocktail list is built around Thai spirits and aged rum, infused with herbs and spices that have been soaking long enough to develop actual character. The space itself sits in a row of old shophouses, low-lit and unhurried.

TEP BAR 69–71 Soi Nana, Pom Prap Sattru Phai. Open daily 6pm–2am. Tel. 098 467 2944

Lat Phrao isn't where you'd necessarily go looking for alternative music programming, but PITI Bar on Soi Lat Phrao 115 has built something real. The vibe is deliberately low-key – air-conditioned inside, an outdoor section when you need air, a room that functions more like a friend's flat on a good night than a venue trying to be a venue. What lifts it above that is the bookings: reggae, ska, funk, soul, jazz, and a steady rotation of international independent acts. The crowd is in on it. So is the person doing the bookings. That combination is rarer than it should be.

PITI BAR Soi Lat Phrao 115, Lat Phrao. Open Tue-Sun 6pm-2am. Tel. 091 038 7392