Innside Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit review: Your hotel guru Happy Hour Asia herby makes its Meliá review debut and with lots of curiosity about its INNSiDE by Meliá brand – open since July 2023 and Thailand’s first hotel for the brand. This lifestyle hotel is also the fourth Meliá Hotels International property in the country, among quite a few sister properties in Southeast Asia. So this is about time to get to know the Spanish Meliá hospitality company better. And with the reviewer strongly in favour of all things Spanish we can’t really go wrong here!
Getting to this hotel is a breeze – if, and, importantly, if taking the BTS skytrain to the adjacent On Nut station. Coming by other means of transport can be a traffic jam adventure… So the nearby station is convenient (and bringing luggage on the train is really not a big hassle), if not for your arrival and departure then most certainly for excursions out into the city!
Upon its opening INNSiDE by Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit joined a collection of unique urban and beach hotels in 14 different countries (within Southeast Asia also in Yogyakarta and Kuala Lumpur). The Innside brand – a fresh and foreign hotel concept also not afraid to embrace local culture – is “designed for guests with curious minds who cultivate a fluid lifestyle when it comes to work and leisure.” The setup of each property enables guests having the freedom to connect or disconnect among an independent community of like-minded travellers.
Innside provides guests with all the everyday essentials and extra-special details to make their stay all the more unique. In-room comforts and features like the inspiring Big Idea Space, Open Living Lounges, and fitness studios, are designed to make us guests feel “more-than-at-home.”
Sustainability-conscious guests can also appreciate the fact that every room is equipped with recycled glass bottles for drinking water, paper and plastic-free collateral and complimentary organic cosmetics. The hotel has banned single-use plastics.
Also, the brand celebrates the culture of each of its locations with an events calendar, handy city guides for guests, and by spotlighting a local artist’s work across the hotel walls and onto merchandise and staff uniforms. Some detail observations about these will follow below.
Design-driven, high-rise Innside Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit
Upon arrival, the hotel building is a high-rise, 34-floor building, with its own drive-in, similar to the looks of a traditional Bangkok residential building. On Nut is also increasingly becoming part of Bangkok’s ‘inner city’, which mainly shows through more and more high-rise buildings mushrooming along the main artery – Sukhumvit Road, paired with additional shopping malls opening up to serve the residents and visitors.
Reception desk at The Open Living Lobby
Well inside the building, the design-driven features immediately reveal themselves. On the ground floor (where the doormen handles luggage and transportation), a “space” full with round white lamp globes dominate the scenery. It’s similar to a room full of white balloons in the air just above people’s head, and reflected by a high, black-tinted inner ceiling.
As contrast, at the far end a print screen wall cover art etching – depicting an ancient Thai rowing boat on Chao Phraya River – comes in darker colours. The drawing has black shadows and the kind of yellow sky, with orange surface, you can get at sunset. The white ceiling lamps are also reflected on this wall screen.
Coming up to ‘The Open Living Lobby’ floor, one can’t miss – right outside the lifts – Bangkok’s Democracy Monument (a famous landmark in the city) depicted as motif for two interior décor details: as a frosted window screen art print- and also a smart wall-mounted, protruding wooden art piece. At sunset the golden colour penetrates the frosted window screen, generating shadows onto the white but now – temporarily – golden/yellow-hued wall.
On another floor, this art is repeated by the lifts, but with another motif: one of Bangkok’s temples – Wat Phra Kaew. The hotel informs that in fact each floor represents a different landmark of Bangkok.
The flooring on this level is grey-veined white marble. A long gold leaf-gilded front desk has a golden wall sketch covering Ratttankosin’s famous historic buildings, including temples, as backdrop. On top of the front desk are intricately design glass lamps and that feels absolutely as being a match with the overall design.
Behind the front desk works young staff, leisurely dressed in white t-shirts – also with Thai motifs.
Besides the lobby is a custom-made wooden staircase, with white steps and railing, leading down to the Kites Eatery’s restaurant a floor below. From the lobby floor one also partly overlooks this eatery, which partly shares the same ceiling as The Open Living Lobby. This configuration in turn enables high, antique style Thai ornamental lamp posts being placed along the windows of the restaurant – adding further to the celebration of the local culture. So for first-time visitors to Thailand this hotel is indeed a very nice introduction to Thai art and some of Bangkok’s most well-known landmarks!
Wine glass in living room, Townhouse suite
Co-working space at Innside Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit
At far end of the front desk is a café and lobby bar that seamlessly integrates into the 32nd floor’s co-working space, The Open Living Lounge is manned by a barista by day and bartender by night. Open from 7am-11pm, the lounge offers an easy grab-and-go menu and specialises in Thai and Western comfort food.
The Open Living Lounge’s offerings include, but are not limited to, grab-and-go barista coffee, morning pastries, cold-pressed juices, kombucha (sweet black tea), and a Spanish afternoon tea.
Open Living Lobby offers a mix of sandy brown textile upholstering for its curved brass metal designer chairs, beige chairs as well as white armchairs and with white round tables and side tables for food and drinks – perhaps not ergonomically ideal as setup but certainly perfect for having creative conversions. Each table is shared by groups of two or four chairs.
Clearly, one colour is dominating in the hotel. Its rooftop bar designer sofas, its restroom sinks (accented by wine-red-tiled walls), wooden wall panels, tables and partly also the dining chairs (also with a nice rosé red) outdoors at LUZ Bangkok Tapas Bar (Luz) are all in this colour. If not before, it becomes very evident when entering the accommodation rooms that white is the dominating in the design for Innside by Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit.
Innside Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit: predominantly white and rose gold
Inside the rooms, and perhaps unsurprisingly – coming from a Spanish brand – it feels very modern-European, and Scandinavian in its style. The predominantly white rooms, including white-washed flooring, oval sink, armchairs, stools, tables and walls – are beautifully accented with rose gold; an in-trend colour for hotels interiors these days, and understandably so!
Ranging from a convenient 20 sqm to an ample 64 sqm, the hotel offers no less than eight accommodation categories (208 rooms in total), and under two umbrellas – ‘Innside Room’ and ‘The Townhouse’. The ‘Innside Room King’ and ‘Innsie Room Twin’ are each 20 sqm and feature a king-size bed and twin beds respectively, with the ‘Innside Connecting Room’ at 40 sqm when one room with a king bed connects to another with two single beds. Then there are the ‘Innside Room King City View’ and ‘Innside Room Twin City View’, each at 20 sqm, located on the hotel’s upper floors, offering full length windows with great views of surrounding capital.
Townhouse suite, bedroom
The townhouse room suite on level 14 signals as a strong home-away-from-home feel. Its livinroom inside the entry doors comes with the kind of framed wall pictures one would often find in residences. Among the motifs here are also black-and-white pictures of the Democrazy Monument.
The livingrom has an usual sofa; basically an indoor daybed as wide and large as an ordinary bed, and with pillows and décor pillows, a place for relaxation while listening to music on the table top – top-notch – Marshall speaker, watching TV/movies on the 50-inch wall TV, or while reading. There is also an open bookshelf, with shiny white shelves.
On the table, find a multi coloured, round traditional Thai lunch box (named ‘pinto’) with Innside’s very own version of welcome snacks.
The rose gold fittings for the bathroom’s tub, shower and toilet are absolutely beautiful, and where its glass doors are also covered with a rose gold screen!
The huge ceramic, tubular, twin sinks actually stands on floor and sticks up through a glass top. The bathroom amenities are all organic and you also find natural cork yoga mats
The bedroom (with its white drapery somewhat resembling a beaty saloon treatment room) comes with a work desk (with a wide, cone-formed rose gold foot) , and the bed has a DreamMaker mattresses, offering superb comfort, and a slightly grey (much too warm for this climate) duvet, flanked by large rose gold bed reading lamps.
Room service is available 24/7 and the hotel offers a 24-hour Infit Gym. Then a real highlight of the hotel is its rooftop on level 34 featuring an interpretation of another well-known Bangkok landmark: The Giant Swing – hence the name: The Giant Swing Pool Bar, located by the infinity pool. And this is not like any pool: while being the size of a plunge pool it has a glass bottom, which functions as the ceiling of the bar underneath it: Luz Bangkok Tapas Bar.
Open Living Sky Pool
Panorama vista from rooftop pool and bar
The panorama vista from this turquoise-hued Open Living Sky Pool is brilliant, where one can sit on an underwater platform or on stairs, with a railing´ – rose-gold, of course – where to enter the water and watch the scenery from there along the infinity pool edges.
Three diverse food and beverage outlets make for the hotel’s dynamic dining landscape. Together with the hotel’s jewel in the crown, an awe-inspiring infinity pool, The Giant Swing Pool Bar commands the 34th floor. Nestled between bar and pool, a compelling contemporary interpretation of Bangkok’s Brahman structure The Giant Swing is a dramatic photo backdrop.
The rooftop also houses a terrace, dotted with outdoor lounges and sunbeds, with a beach club feel. The bar is right by these seats, with a rose gold-tinted mirror as backdrop and a brass latticework above it. Open from 10am until midnight, the open-air pool bar serves Mediterranean, Thai and international snacks and dishes such as Innside’s Burger and cool beverages including imaginative cocktails.
Spanish tapas and drinks by Luz
The other rooftop attraction at Innside by Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit – with both indoor an alfresco dining on the 33rd floor offers something genuinely Spanish in the form of a genuine tapas joint.
Clearly visible as a sign of things Spanish is the beer-on-tap station with the Estrella logo at the bar. Here at Luz, one can also enjoy Spanish wines and authentic tapas, along with signature cocktails. If sitting at the bar one can look up into the bottom of the illuminated pool above, and also view art on a tilted panorama video screen. And the transparent bar counter is constantly shifting colour, adding to a nightlife vibe at Luz.
Tomato soup and cocktail, LUZ Bangkok Tapas Bar are
Dinner tables are decorated with those vintage-style modern table lamps, here in brass with a round white lamp on the top
Both indoor and outdoor flooring is a kind of black-and-white mosaic, made from tiny square tiles that form a pattern.
Indoors is by contrast very colourful with oversized cobalt-blue sofas, and velvet décor cushions in hues of blue and reddish. The table setting comes with freefrom blue tables.
As for the tapas it may not be the same dishes later but Happy Hour Asia sampled an array of absolutely superb dishes. Some Pan Con Tomate – toasted bread, fresh tomato, is a tapas staple, and great together with Tartar de A tun Y Salmoreja – Tuna tartare with cold tomato soup. Tomato soup can be fantastic – and this one, dressed with sliced cherry tomatoes and edible flowers, subscribes to that!
The Gambas Ai Ajillo, Sauteed tiger prawn with chili & garlic – tastes as good as it looks, with the prawns drenched in lots of olive oil combined with the garlic. An absolute winner!
Then some Pescado Frito ( traditional dish from the Southern coast of Spain) – Fried chunky shishamo with aioli (using a Japanese fish), which is deep-fried fish great with wine or beer.
And last but not least Arroz Caldoso De Marisco, (which differs from the Paella by using long grain rice), served with three tiger prawns on top of the stew. It is perfectly cooked – and you can tell – with lots of love by the Spanish chef-led kitchen team.
On the cocktail front, from the Hola Coctel selection ’Marianito Preparado’ (Caoruun gin, sweet vermouth, campari, orange juice, bitters) turns out to be a great palette neutraliser for one’s taste buds! It strikes the balance perfectly when it comes to the campari flavour.
’Born in Barcelona’ consist in food and cocktail ingredients pairings, where most drinks are based on ’Ginraw’ For example: La Boqueria (BCNs most famous market) pairs Anchovies with Brioche & Grated Tomato and a cocktail based on Ginraw cherry blossom, strawberry syrup and grapefruit juice. GinRaw is a Spanish botanical gin brand from Barcelona.
The Kite’s Eatery dinner tables
From the ’Luz Exclusive’ signatures the locally-inspired ’Phraya’ seems interesting – not only for its name but the fact that it is made with a Thai rum brand called Phraya! The coctail is a mix of Phraya Gold rum, cherry brandy, green apple syryp, pineapple juice, fresh milk and coconut cream and comes served in a classic martini glasss.
Sauco (Caorunn gin, cointreau, elderflower, cranberry juice), or The INNSiDERS (Old Pulteney Scotch Whiskey 12 years, Cinnamon, lime, cranberry juice, honey and egg white) are other examples of interesting signatures.
Trying Crispy Spanish churros (fried dough) with rich chocolate sauce as dessert requires some coffee or tea as companion for balance – it’s rather sweet.
Splendid Thai cuisine at The Kites Eatery
Then there is The Kites Eatery, serving hotel guests with breakfast but also all-day dining, offering taste sensations that focuses on Thai cuisine, with a selection of central, northern, north-eastern and southern Thai cuisine a la minute using quality ingredients sourced from local farms.
Here, a graphic glass wall backdrop depicts the Sanam Luang park (where there is a tradition to play with kites) and the yellow-brown dinner tables have individual enlarged pieces of maps from Bangkok’s web of expressways and myriad smaller roads) printed on them. Dining seats include various vintage-inspired modern chairs (using brass metal instead of traditional rattan in one example), and dark green leather wood sofas that are place back-to-back. There is also a blond wood long table. Cutlery are gold-hued.
Some of the best Thai cusisine can be enjoyed in hotel restaurants, and this is one of them for foreigners to fully enjoy – with some of the best dishes one can possibly get (it is elevated a few notches thanks to using quality ingredients throughout)! And the dishes are served on warm plates.
The Sua Rong Hai, Sue-ronghai spices marinated black beef tastes awesome! Talay Phad Phong Karee, Stir-fried catch of the day seafood with smooth yellow curry sauce comes with lots of mussles, squid and also shallots! It’s a gentle curry. Sumptuous!
Pee Gai Thod, Bangkok street-fried chicken wings with fried shallots and herbs, is certainly a street-food/take-away classic in these waters. So is Chicken stir-fried with chili paste and cashew nuts
On the breakfast enjoy a selection that includes mango smoothies, egg benedict, assorted dim sum and more.
Happy Hour Asia ends with the conclusion that this lifestyle hotel gets a high total score!
