If The District Grill Room and Bar isn't Bangkok's most distant-from-downtown deal of its kind, it's getting there. Such upscale establishments aren't usually found beyond where commerce, trendies and tourists comingle, which on the eastern edge doesn't extend much beyond Phrom Phong. At least that's the view from District, according to its Bangkok Marriott Hotel Sukhumvit (Soi 57) management.
Fortunately there are still customers craving charcoal-encrusted, butter-soft steaks served with Manhattanesque panache and Escoffienne je ne sais quoi. Notably night-life loving locals prevaricating between Thonglor and Ekkamai and international salarymen seconded to sundry industrial estates in Chonburi and the near beyond.
Hence while District isn't a cheap date, it's a lively one where canoodling couples must accept boisterous bromancers and corporate suits for company. Space-wise it might be the largest grill in the city but pretty vacant the designer décor is not.
Curvaceously shaped in a crescent, the layout segues a provocatively pink seafood display, shake-shake bar with all-original cocktails, and vibrant open kitchen facing stratified seating areas and a window wall scoping the hotel's swish lobby.
Décor builds from a blank, black canvas ornamented with monochrome stills and other style-cues from the restaurant's Manhattan Meatpacking District muse, and inviting wine racks. Most iconically, naked flames rage from the ingeniously engineered front-facing grill from which succulent steaks rise as miraculously uncindered as certain saints. Whilst as intrinsically masculine as the surgically butchered bulls, a feminine frisson of stiletto thin stems and snow-white blooms deftly harmonise Venus and Mars.
With a raw bar, appetizers, soups & salads, grills comprising steaks and classics, seafood selections, plus sauces, sides and sweet treats, the menu outline is conventional but the selections have a branding all their own.
The steaks listings are relatively succinct, with the emphasis on selecting, slicing and presenting a few immaculately marbled cuts exceptionally well and reasonably economically, namely, USDA Prime Angus, Australian Jack's Creek Angus 240-day grain fed, Australian Stockyard Wagyu, Japanese Wagyu, and Angus Tomahawk.
Said “classics” range lamb or pork chops, roasted baby chicken and Wagyu burger. Surf numbers include lobster & chips, sea bass, salmon, king crab legs and seafood macaroni-cheese. All consummately complemented by sides such as rocket, pine nut & parmesan salad, truffle fries and sautéed mushrooms.
Seafood sauces are béarnaise, white wine, cocktail and Thai, with green peppercorn, red wine, mushroom or Brazilian chimichurri for meats.
Smaller steak weights leave scope to prelude one's repast with lobster bisque/tarragon/cognac, Hokkaido scallop over bacon and green pea, or crab cakes.
Or just rock up to the raw bar for live oysters, lobster carpaccio or a gala seafood tower with a cleverly curated glass of wine.
Desserts include a serious challenger in the ultimate New York cheesecake stakes -- smoked-style with fresh vanilla ice cream.
With the corporate side of business booming, it's worth noting that District's talented head chef Ithhi, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris and survivor of 3-Michelin starred Ledoyen in Paris, creates some delectable degustation menus over which to leaven deal discussions, celebrate or schmooze. Typically these comprise an amuse bouche, a meat and a seafood appetizer and a soup, followed by a meat or fish mains and dessert. By the closing crescendo you are blissfully full without the guilt trip of leaving waste on the plate.
