Public House Bangkok

Every direct booking at Public House Bangkok comes with thirty minutes in a podcast studio: soundproofed walls, microphone booms, a mixer on a stone table. It is a fair guess about who checks in. Paul and Angie Sachdev built the hotel for working as much as sleeping, with architecture by 4b Architects Bangkok, and FORUM, the coworking floor, is next to the studio, in case the episode needs writing first. In the lounge a portrait drawn in tangled wire hangs on the wood panelling between two tall cylindrical lamps, above blue banquettes. The rooms keep to mid-century lines, a buttoned coral headboard and herringbone parquet, and in some the glass runs floor to ceiling on two walls, which among Sukhumvit's apartment towers means a good many neighbours. The soi is residential enough to stay quiet at night, so they are something to look at rather than listen to.

Recommended for couples, and for anyone who has brought a laptop to Bangkok and means to open it. Breakfast at SWD is cooked to order, so no buffet trays and no warming lamps, and the chicken and waffles are the house signature. Stay seven nights and a desk at FORUM is included around the clock, which is either a perk or a warning. The way out is a bike from the front desk and the canal route, at least five kilometres each way; Gaggan Anand is 350 metres from the door. On the roof the pool closes at eight, THE MOOON pours Group B's Thai craft beer until ten, and the former helipad is given over to yoga and Thai boxing. Downstairs, OPEN BAR starts its social hour at half past five. Dogs are welcome there but not in the rooms, so a dog can make the social hour and must then go home.