Bangkok……..if you have visited this great city you will know about its love affair with coffee, cakes and sweets and my-oh-my does it have some of the best cafés on this planet?!?! Bangkok – being our favourite city in the world – is where we wanted to begin our journey into our new blog series of Top 5’s!! Bangkok is a place we have been lucky enough to have visited numerous times over the years and a place where we have enjoyed some of the best eats anywhere. More local eateries are more often our choice for meals as you cannot go wrong in a place frequented by locals but we also like to indulge in a somewhat more ‘western’ style when the mood takes us and this is never an issue in a big, bustling city like this so we thought this would be a good place to start this new series. With cafés popping up all the time that primarily focus on speciality coffee we thought we would exclude them and compile a list of places that also offer a bite to eat, whether sweet or savoury, breakfast or brunch, pastries or pies.

So here goes…in no particular order…we’ll start with…

Toby’s Café

We visited Toby’s on a couple of lovely Sunday mornings and we find it has a buzzing, lively vibe. You will find many locals here together with a spattering of tourists. The decor is wonderfully modern and clean and there is also outdoor seating available. They have a varied menu catering for all palates with the smashed avocado coming in as a top recommendation…it is delicious! Their iced coffee is excellent too – as you would expect – and possibly the nicest of which we have had. Price-wise; higher than average for this type of café but it wouldn’t be on this list if it wasn’t worth it. Wi-Fi was a touch ropey during our visits there but that is more often than not a good thing as everyone can then engage with one another rather than having their heads down in their phones, which adds to the atmosphere…a top choice.

After You Dessert Café

Truth be told if this was a Top One list then After You would most probably be the One…It offers the worlds best dessert, in our opinion, and although the queues and waiting times to enter any of its premises are long, this, of course, speaks volumes. The biggest difference between this and other places is that here, you will want to wait……you will definitely want to wait! The main dessert is based around Japanese Shibuya toast or brick toast, it consists of a super-soft type of bread loaf with melted butter, served warm with ice cream, whipped cream and maple syrup… it may not sound like much but trust us on this, it is divine. With each visit to Bangkok, a visit (or two) to After You is a must for us as there is no place like it, full stop! There is so much on offer in terms of coffees, teas, free re-fill refreshments and lots more besides…Prices are good too!! Check their menu to see the full extent of the deliciousness!!

Jones the Grocer

Jones the Grocer may just be the greatest name for a café ever!! This brand is Australian born but boasts locations in eight countries around the world. Of course, for this post, we will be concentrating on their Bangkok location in the EmQuartier Shopping Mall which also doubles up as a restaurant. Another place with a fantastic selection of yummy food and dessert!! Prices are on the higher side but this is their only café in Bangkok so for that reason, we would recommend visiting while in town. The sweets selection, food, iced drinks and service is simply terrific. For the cakes alone a visit here should be on everyone’s list.

The Breakfast Story

Now with two locations in Bangkok; our regular in Phrom Phong, the other, we’ve yet to visit, being in Phloen Chit. Breakfast Story in Phrom Phong is located above a bar called Hair of the Dog that specialises in craft beers – check them out too, as cool and as funky as you can get!! But let’s get back to cafés…Why is The Breakfast Story in our Top 5? Well, what better than a place that doesn’t stop serving breakfast?!… As their slogan says ‘Breakfast done right, all day‘. The menu consists of a plethora of healthy and some more decadent choices, special mention must go to their homemade granola! No words needed! Pancakes, smoothies, yoghurt, fruit pots, all types of eggs, vegan options, you name it, it’s there. They are famous for their pancakes and for good reason too! Location wise, even though a little puzzling, Google Maps will direct you to the right place, check the map below.

*note: The guys at Breakfast Story are also offering 10% off all delivery orders from their restaurant during the Covid-19 lockdown

(not just) Another Cup

This beautiful café with a beautiful menu with beautiful coffee is just flat out beautiful overkill!! The avocado toast, which is one of their signature dishes, with feta cheese and pine nuts is so good that we now make it at home. Their selection of healthy smoothies is phenomenal to the point of ‘I really need to add a link to the smoothie menu‘ phenomenal.  The style of the place is less laid back than some of our other choices with a stunningly decorated natural, airy and earthy feel on both floors. It is a joy to spend time here and any place that has the sort of quality that makes you copy their recipes at home and makes you crave a return deserves to be on any list!

But we couldn’t possibly end this list without an honorary mention to the following exceptional cafés;

The Coffee Club – Unbelievable coffee – located in the IconSiam Mall.

Old Town Café – Superb coffee, wonderfully rustic decor.

Roots – This is real farm-to-cup stuff, exceptional coffee.

Rocket Coffeebar – Class, Class and more Class!!

Roast Coffee & Eatery – Their Smoothie Bowl…that’s all we need to say!

Kaizen Coffee – was walking past and grabbed an iced coffee to go… so good we ‘walked past’ again….and again.

So there you have it, the first in our series of Top 5‘s…With a few added exceptionals. It’s only our opinion and, of course, with thousands of cafés to choose from in this wonderful city, we are sure that others may not select any of our choices in a list they might compile. All-in-all that is the beauty of it, however, we all have our preferences and we would love to hear your thoughts so feel free to leave a comment. We hope you have the opportunity to visit some if not all of the above. Please don’t forget to like/dislike this post and if you have any ideas for a Top 5 you’d like us to compile we’d love to hear it and many thanks to Samantha Reynolds for suggesting this Top 5

-The Adventurous Bug –