Majestic Grande Hotel Bangkok: Foodie Friendly Hotel in Sukhumvit

On our last stay in Bangkok, we stayed at the Majestic Grande Hotel Bangkok. Whenever we travel around Asia, we like to use Bangkok as a hub. It’s a great city with amazing street food and lots of massage places that help us get over our jet lag quickly, and flights generally seem to be cheaper than elsewhere, both for flying into Asia from Europe and to cover shorter distances within Asia. Most of the time, we stay in the area near the Chao Phraya river, because I simply love being by the water. But this time, we wanted to explore a different area of Bangkok and chose Sukhumvit.

The Majestic Grande is an upscale hotel in Sukhumvit with 251 rooms, two restaurants, a bar, and a great little outdoor pool which we found wonderfully refreshing in the Bangkok heat.

The lobby of the Majestic Grande Hotel, with a friendly piano player who played almost every day during the afternoon and early evening

Welcome cocktails! Instead of being served a drink immediately during check in, we were given two vouchers for a welcome cocktail that we could have at the bar any time during our stay (before 8pm). Nice idea!

The Sukhumvit Location of the Majestic Grande Hotel Bangkok

The hotel is just around the corner from Ploenchit BTS (skytrain) station, which is a big bonus point in Bangkok. Traffic can be horrendous anywhere in the city, so being able to get right to the hotel with the skytrain is a huge plus and makes getting around the city and exploring way more comfortable.

The surrounding area of Sukhumvit is an upscale residential neighborhood featuring plenty of bars, restaurants and shopping malls, as well as a great selection of street food. Even though the famous Sukhumvit Soi 38 has been closed down, there is no shortage of street food here. We found ourselves going out for variations of papaya salad and barbecue chicken pretty much every night. Duang Phithak Rd, which is just next to Sukhumvit Soi 2 (where the hotel is), has a big row of street food stalls that all seem to sell some version of papaya salad. Just on the other side of Sukhumvit Road near Soi 1, there are a few seafood stalls which had great looking fish as well – you won’t go hungry.

We also spent an evening enjoying live music at Check Inn 99, an old little neighborhood bar where a band played famous songs and seemed to know pretty much everyone in the audience. It was cosy and a nice, relaxed evening out – although we did feel a bit young there, most guests were quite a bit older than us.

And finally, the hotel was just a short distance from Theta State Float Center, where we spent a few hours floating in isolation tanks and sipping blue tea.

Our room

We stayed in a Superior Room on the 9th floor, with views of the surrounding area, a king size bed and a big bathtub. The room was a gadget lover’s dream, with a “master panel” next to the bed which lets you control pretty much anything in the room, from the air con and the lights to the ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door. There was also a multimedia hub in the wall with plenty of power plugs, wired internet (there was Wifi everywhere as well) and even VGA and HDMI plugs to connect your computer to the 40″ flat screen TV. You can imagine that went down well with us working-from-the-road type travelers!

Our room, with a kingsize bed and extra large windows

Large choice of bathroom amenities, which came in handy as we had a 40 hour journey back to Europe in front of us!

Dining options at the Majestic Grande

The hotel has a buffet restaurant on the 7th floor, called Dine@7, serving international cuisine, with seating both inside as well as outside by the pool. There is also an Indian restaurant on the ground floor serving fresh kebabs and curries. We didn’t get a chance to try the Indian restaurant but had breakfast and lunch at the buffet restaurant.

Breakfast was great and truly international with items from all over the world. Lots of fresh fruit, a huge selection of pastries and everything needed for a ‘Full English Breakfast’ were the basics. But there was also Sushi, salads, noodle soups – the list is long.

A small part of the enormous breakfast buffet, with some cold meats, cheeses and sushi. I enjoyed the Japanese style omelettes (tamagoyaki), which felt like legitimate breakfast sushi!

We found all the ingredients needed for a full English breakfast, much to the joy of my English boyfriend

I always start my hotel breakfasts with a plate of fruit, it helps me wake up. So this huge choice of fruit plus readily prepared fruit salad was my perfect start into the day

We were very happy with the breakfast buffet, and didn’t think we’d eat much at lunch, but oh we were so wrong! The lunch buffet was even more varied than breakfast, and the quality of food truly impressive for a buffet. The egg station from breakfast turned into an outdoor barbecue station making delicious saté, and the fruit buffet turned into a massive dessert selection that I really should have stayed away from but obviously couldn’t.

A selection of the dishes found on the international buffet at the Majestic. My personal favorite: the read duck curry (bottom right) was the highlight of the Thai section at lunch. The duck was beautifully tender and the sauce just the right amount of spicy, sweet and sour all at once.

A prawn cocktail starter

A selection of desserts, and the beautiful little pretzel I had with a big plate of cheese. Standout dish was the lemon merengue pie (top right): Best lemon merengue pie ever. We ate three of those, just to make sure they were uniformly good. They were. I’ve been craving lemon merengue pie ever since and I’m about to stop writing this to go bake one, even though it won’t match the ones we had at the Majestic.

The dessert buffet which I couldn’t resist

The Pool

The pool area was a great little relaxation zone, with sun loungers and tables for an afternoon snack or drink. The pool itself was very fancy, with ornate decorations and areas that were tucked away and had a jacuzzi and bubble beds.

Bubble beds between Thai style elephant fountains

This corner of the pool had a jacuzzi in it, great cooling down in the afternoon. If you prefer heated jacuzzis, the spa also had a hot jacuzzi inside!

Poolside tables for dining and afternoon cocktails

Majestic Grande’s Gym & Spa

The Spa and wellness area at the Majestic. Big jacuzzi! Great for the occasional rainy day in Bangkok

If you’ve read any of our other hotel reviews, you’ll know that we love a good hotel gym. The gym at the Majestic Grande had all the machines we needed for a good workout, with a selection of free weights and a Smith Machine. The cardio machines looked out to the pool area.

The spa featured a sauna and jacuzzi which were both free of charge, and offered a range of massage and body treatments, including – of course – the famous Thai massage.

The gym, where we attempted to work off the damage done by our three lemon merengue pies

The verdict

The Majestic Grande Hotel was in a very convenient location and easy to get to. The room had everything we needed and the high tech perks scored brownie points with us.
Whilst I love being by the river, I was pleasantly surprised by Sukhumvit and especially its food options. That being said, you could also just eat at the hotel 24/7. We were truly impressed by the quality and selection of dishes offered both for breakfast and for lunch. And we’ll never forget that lemon merengue pie.

We enjoyed our stay as guests of the Majestic Grande Hotel Bangkok. All opinions are my own and I will only recommend hotels and activities I truly enjoy. Check out the hotel website for more info!