Savoey @The Mercury Ville at Chidlom
Mercury Tower, 540 Phloen Chit Rd, Lumphini, Pathum Wan, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10330
Lead with the deep-fried shrimp cake and the stir-fried mud crab in yellow curry sauce, the two dishes the house has been cooking since the Patong cart days. Pick fish from the tanks rather than ordering off the printed menu if you are with a group, the live selection is what distinguishes this branch from the Sukhumvit 26 mothership.
The 2nd floor of Mercury Tower opens straight onto the Savoey dining room, with a dozen seawater tanks lining the back wall holding the day's catch.
The family business has been running since 1972, when it opened as a street-food cart in Patong, Phuket. It grew into a Bangkok seafood institution and now operates more than ten branches across Thailand. The Mercury Ville Chidlom branch is one of the newer rooms in the group and the one closest to the Phloen Chit BTS exit, which makes it the obvious lunch stop for the office towers on that stretch of road.
The menu is built on family recipes passed down through generations. Tom yum goong with river prawns is the showpiece soup. The deep-fried shrimp cake is the appetiser the house is known for. Steamed seabass with lime and chilli is the most-ordered fish dish. The stir-fried mud crab in yellow curry sauce is the cross-table reach.
Balancing those are the Thai sides the group has always built around: pork satay, the special baked-pineapple fried rice, somtam, and a braised oyster omelet.
Reserve by phone for the live-tank tables on weekend evenings, the dinner service runs the heaviest then. Mercury Ville is connected to the Phloen Chit BTS station by a skybridge, so the cleanest entry is to ride the BTS rather than take a Grab into the Phloen Chit traffic.