Inside Yu Ting Yuan, the Cantonese restaurant that made Michelin history in Bangkok, Thailand

Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River’s signature Chinese restaurant brings polished Cantonese cooking, striking design and some seriously memorable fried rice to the city.

While this experience was by invitation, all thoughts and opinions are our own.

We review Yu Ting Yuan at Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River

Snapshot

Address: Yu Ting Yuan, Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River, 300/1 Charoen Krung Road, Sathorn, Bangkok
Cuisine: Cantonese
Best for: Special occasions or when only a proper Cantonese feast will do
Must try: Chef’s Signature Barbecue Selection, Imperial Fried Rice with Lobster and Crab Meat in X.O. Sauce
Style: Jean-Michel Gathy-designed interiors with wooden screens and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the hotel’s central water feature
Price range: Yu Ting Yuan Menu Experience THB 4,500++ per person
Good to know: Open for lunch and dinner, with à la carte, set menus, dim sum at lunch and chef-led tasting menus to choose from.

First impressions

Located on the lobby level of Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River, Yu Ting Yuan looks out across the shimmering black central water feature, which is one of the first, and quite unexpected, design features you encounter when you arrive at the hotel.

The space was designed by Jean-Michel Gathy. Soaring ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, wooden dividers and an open kitchen all add to the striking effect. I really fell for the ultra-glossy black floor, with its reflective surface echoing the water outside and creating an impressive visual connection between the two.

Then there are the flowers. Huge sprays of red blooms explode across the room, joined by oversized arrangements of orange and yellow blooms. There is plenty of drama, but it is done super tastefully, a theme that runs throughout the whole hotel.

Yu Ting Yuan earned its first Michelin star in the 2022 Michelin Guide Thailand, becoming the first Cantonese restaurant in Thailand to receive the accolade. Today, it remains in the Michelin Guide as a recommended restaurant.

Classic Cantonese, his way

Executive Chef Tommy Cheung leads the kitchen. Cheung brings serious Cantonese credentials, including time at Hong Kong’s two-Michelin-starred Yan Toh Heen and as Executive Chef at one-Michelin-starred Ya Ge in Taipei.

His cooking stays rooted in classic Cantonese flavours and techniques, with a modern approach to presentation and enough creativity to put his own stamp on the classics without straying too far from tradition.

Sweet, smoky and seriously good crab

We tried the Yu Ting Yuan Menu Experience, a seven-course dinner I would highly recommend, with enough variety to keep things interesting.

The opening signature barbecue selection is designed to be eaten from left to right, moving from sweeter flavours towards smokier ones. An unexpected standout was the deep-fried crab meat in shell, made with local blue crab. Beneath the crisp golden top, the filling was unbelievably creamy and rich. We were warned not to tackle the hard base of the shell itself, which was useful advice when the whole thing looked good enough to eat.

The Australian M9 wagyu beef cubes came with scallion sauce, which I was advised to mix with spring onion and crisp rice. The beef melted in my mouth, while the crunch of the rice added a welcome contrast in texture.

The biggest surprise was the imperial fried rice with lobster and crab meat in X.O. sauce. By this point I had little room left, yet it was one of the dishes I most wanted to keep eating. Generous pieces of lobster were folded through the rice with egg and onion, while the restaurant’s homemade X.O. sauce pulled everything together. This was not a token bowl of rice at the end of a tasting menu, but classic Chinese comfort food executed with real precision. I only wished I had saved more space for it.

Dessert brought chilled milk custard with bird’s nest and ginger, finished with gold leaf. We were cheerfully informed that this dish might help us look younger, which seemed a perfectly good reason to eat a little more. Petit fours including miniature egg tarts and mooncake with lotus seeds followed, with the team explaining the association with celebration, friendship and happiness, a lovely note on which to finish the meal.

Service with personality

What stayed with us almost as much as the food was the team looking after us. Courses were explained carefully without turning dinner into a lecture, with just the right amount of detail at each stage.

Several of the younger members of the team brought an infectious energy to the evening and clearly took pride in what they were serving. They brought warmth, humour and enthusiasm for the restaurant, whether explaining how to eat the barbecue selection, warning us about the crab shell or joking that the collagen was something we apparently ‘didn’t need’ to help us look younger.

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