Vintage Bars in Thonglor and Ekkamai — Where to Go, and When

Full disclosure: we run TUBA, on Soi Ekkamai 21. Which is exactly why we have not put ourselves at the top of this list on our own website. The bars below come first; ours is at the bottom of the page with the same practical detail, so you can weigh it against them.

Thonglor and Ekkamai have no shortage of bars. What they have far less of is bars with a past — rooms that feel collected rather than installed, where the objects on the wall belong to somebody and the lighting was not chosen by a consultant. Here are the ones worth your evening.

The Iron Fairies — 394 Soi Sukhumvit 55 (Thonglor)

Best for: the closest thing in Bangkok to TUBA’s instinct — a dark room built entirely around one person’s obsession, with a band in it.

If you like TUBA, this is the one to try next. The Iron Fairies is designer Ashley Sutton’s imaginary ironsmith workshop: wrought-iron staircases, exposed pipes, weathered timber and brick, and jars of small iron fairies stacked everywhere you look. It is not vintage in the antique-shop sense — nothing here is a hundred years old — but the effect is the same. A room so densely made that you keep noticing new things three drinks in.

It also shares TUBA’s other habit: live music is the point, not the background. A band plays jazz and blues from around 9:00 p.m.

Know before you go: published hours run 6:00 p.m.–2:00 a.m. Sunday to Friday, from 9:00 a.m. on Saturday — worth checking their own channels before you set off. It is busy at weekends, and small.

Black Amber Social Club — Thonglor Soi 6

Best for: the darker end of vintage — curiosities, and a bit of theatre.

Black Amber leans Victorian curiosity cabinet: the owner’s own collection of oddities, skulls and antique curios lining a small, dim room. It is closer to TUBA in spirit than in style — another bar where somebody’s private collecting habit ended up on the walls — but the register is gothic rather than nostalgic.

Go for the room and the collection. Go early if you want a seat.

Two more worth knowing

• Studio Lam, Sukhumvit Soi 51 — the record-bar answer to the same idea. Built by the people behind Zudrangma Records around a custom tube sound system, playing Thai molam and luk thung alongside funk, reggae and jazz. If TUBA’s Thai-nostalgia nights are your thing, this is where that music lives all week.
• T-Rex, Thonglor Soi 14 — a vintage Chinese teashop downstairs with framed film posters, and a more polished space upstairs. Worth a stop if you are already on Soi 14.

And ours, for the record — TUBA, Soi Ekkamai 21 (Thonglor 20)

Best for: the full vintage experience — dinner, cocktails, live music and a room you can browse.

TUBA has been on Soi Ekkamai 21 since 2005, and the reason it does not feel like a themed bar is that it is not one. The full name is TUBA Design Furniture & Restaurant: it began as a furniture and antiques business, and the bar grew up inside the collection. The lamp above your table has a price. So does the chair you are sitting in.

That means the room changes. Things sell, new things arrive, and the version you photograph tonight is not the one someone posted last year. Mid-century lamps sit next to religious statuary, film posters hang over red velvet, and there is a mannequin where no mannequin should reasonably be.

CNN Travel put it on its list of 50 reasons Bangkok is the world’s greatest city under the heading “Eat among forgotten 20th-century curios,” which is the shortest accurate description anyone has managed.

Know before you go: open daily 9:00 a.m.–2:00 a.m. Live music every night from 8:30 p.m. — jazz on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Thai-nostalgia 90s the rest of the week, and a 90s DJ in the Dining zone on Friday and Saturday. Happy hour daily 5:00–8:00 p.m. Free parking out front until 5:00 p.m., valet after. Come in daylight if you actually want to look at the room.

Reserve a table · private rooms · menu

How to do them in one night

They are close enough to string together, and they peak at different hours:

• From 5:00 p.m. — start at TUBA for happy hour and daylight on the collection, then stay for the band at 8:30 p.m. if the night is going well
• Around 9:00 p.m. — The Iron Fairies on Sukhumvit 55, timed for when the band starts
• After 11:00 p.m. — Black Amber on Soi 6, which is at its best late

BTS Thonglor sits between all three; motorbike taxis between sois run 30–40 THB.

Details for The Iron Fairies, Black Amber Social Club, Studio Lam and T-Rex are drawn from published guides including BK Magazine and Time Out Bangkok. We have no commercial relationship with any of them — check their own channels for current hours before you go.

สรุปภาษาไทย

3 บาร์วินเทจที่น่าไปในย่านทองหล่อ–เอกมัย (บอกก่อนว่าเราคือ TUBA เอง เลยเลยไม่จัดอันดับตัวเองไว้ที่ 1 — ร้านอื่นมาก่อน ส่วนของเราอยู่ท้ายหน้า)

1. TUBA — ซอยเอกมัย 21 (ทองหล่อ 20) ร้านอาหารและบาร์ในแกลเลอรีเฟอร์นิเจอร์วินเทจที่ซื้อได้จริง เปิดตั้งแต่ปี 2005 เปิดทุกวัน 09:00–02:00 น. ดนตรีสดทุกคืนเริ่ม 20:30 น. (แจ๊สอังคาร/พฤหัส) Happy Hour 17:00–20:00 น.

2. The Iron Fairies — 394 สุขุมวิท 55 (ทองหล่อ) ร้านที่ใกล้เคียงกับ TUBA มากที่สุด บรรยากาศเหมือนโรงตีเหล็กในจินตนาการ เหล็กดัด ไม้เก่า อิฐ และขวดนางฟ้าเหล็กเต็มร้าน มีวงดนตรีสดเล่นแจ๊สและบลูส์ประมาณ 21:00 น.

3. Black Amber Social Club — ทองหล่อ ซอย 6 สไตล์ตู้ของสะสมยุควิกตอเรียน มืด ๆ ขลัง ๆ มีของสะสมแปลกตาของเจ้าของร้าน

แนะนำเพิ่ม: Studio Lam (สุขุมวิท 51) บาร์แผ่นเสียงของ Zudrangma Records เปิดหมอลำ ลูกทุ่ง ฟังก์ และแจ๊ส ผ่านชุดเครื่องเสียงหลอดที่ทำขึ้นเอง

ทั้งหมดอยู่ไม่ไกลกัน ลง BTS ทองหล่อ ต่อวินมอเตอร์ไซค์ระหว่างซอย 30–40 บาท (รบกวนเช็กเวลาเปิด–ปิดกับทางร้านอีกครั้งก่อนเดินทาง)