The bar at Tokyo's Park Hyatt hotel is where Bill Murray brooded over all those Hibiki 17s in Lost in Translation. Bangkok’s own version will open for business along with the Park Hyatt hotel sometime midway into the year and be called simply the Cocktail Bar.

Expect walnut woods, leathers and antique mirror ceilings 35 floors above the city. In-demand interiors firm AvroKO has created a VIP mezzanine complete with an "antechamber" or secret room hidden behind a walnut panel. In here, we're being told of red-tiled walls sourced from Chiang Mai, Macassar-ebony wood and classic button-tufted leather.

And all this sounds like a very good thing. Up till now, Bangkok’s bar scene has been thin on properly grown-up hotel bars to sit and nurse something grossly expensive while knocking back complimentary peanuts. While The Bar at St. Regis delivered on great views, it always lacked on the ambience and drinks of a truly world-class hotel bar, while the Mandarin Oriental's moody Bamboo Bar is a long trek from Siam-Sukhumvit.  

Just on the hotel itself, the finishing touches to what has been Bangkok's most highly-anitcipated hotel project are right now underway. The Park Hyatt takes residence in the Amanda Levete-designed spiraling tower of Central Embassy shopping mall and is boasting of levels of luxury which surpass any other Bangkok hotel. It has also fallen over two years behind schedule.