Çırağan or Four Seasons: the water or the walls, in Istanbul

ISTANBUL · ÇIRAĞAN vs. FOUR SEASONS SULTANAHMET · 5 MIN READ

Çırağan or Four Seasons: the water or the walls, in Istanbul

Both are excellent, and the right answer depends on how many days you have. Two: the old city. Three or more: at least one night on the water. Four: both, in the same trip.

By J.C. Mercer

Verified stays·paid in full

	Çırağan Palace	Four Seasons Sultanahmet
Stayed	April 2025	April 2025
Room booked	Superior Bosphorus View, king	Deluxe Room, king, courtyard side
How it was booked	Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts, public rate	AmEx Fine Hotels + Resorts, public rate
What the channel bought	Not clear if upgraded, but a great view from an otherwise standard room	The full FHR package, with an upgraded room
Value verdict	Tremendously outsized value, especially in the shoulder season.	Worth it for the old city days; the ideal trip pairs it with the water.
When to go	April to June, or September to October. Book Çırağan	April to June. Book Four Seasons

Both stays booked the way any other guest would book them.

The question

Istanbul is two cities pretending to be one, and these two hotels are the cleanest way to choose between them — with the honest complication that both are excellent. The Çırağan sits on the Bosphorus with the last sultan’s palace at its heart and a pool a metre above the shipping lane. The Four Seasons sits in the old city two hundred paces from Hagia Sophia. I stayed at both in the same April, booked the same way, in the entry-level room at each.

The pool terrace and the Bosphorus in full sun, the suspension bridge in the distance — Çırağan: the pool terrace and the strait in full sun, the bridge in the distance. A ship goes past at arm’s length.

The real question is not which hotel is better. It is how many days you have. The correct answer, from three days up, is a ferry ticket between the two.

Looking down into the courtyard, its glazed pavilion set among the ochre wings — Four Seasons: the old exercise yard, now a garden with a glazed pavilion between the ochre wings.

Side by side

What	Çırağan	Four Seasons
Where	The Bosphorus shore, on the last open waterfront before the city closes up	The old city, beside Hagia Sophia, above the Marmara
The building	The last sultan’s palace at its heart, with a history wing the equal of any hotel’s	A former prison, converted; the exercise yard is now the garden
Entry room	Superior Bosphorus View, king: committed Ottoman revival, generous throughout	Deluxe, courtyard side: warm, low-lit, thick walls, deep reveals
Service	The more attentive of the two — more people on the floor, and it shows	Small-house warmth; names by the first morning
Pool	On the water, a metre above the strait — a tranquil haze all afternoon	None; guests are sent across town to the sister hotel
Inside the hotel	The palace, art worth hours of wandering, and a tour that may end in the sultan’s suites	The roof, and the building’s own history told on the corridor wall
Eating	Excellent — and Tuğra, in the palace, is exceptional: the Anatolian wine pairing alone justifies dinner	Excellent — Avlu draws locals across town, and the roof closes the evening
Families	The better fit: grounds, pool, and room to run	Tighter quarters, busier pavements
The days	Tranquil: the pool, the nargile at the rail, the art, Ortaköy on foot	Nonstop: all of Istanbul in a day, starting at the front door
Getting about	A car or a boat; the drive bottlenecks at six	On foot; tram or boat to cross to the modern city

A bed with a red runner against a patterned headboard wall, lamps either side and a seating area beyond — Çırağan: the room, Ottoman revival without apology.

White linen and a warm bedside lamp, with the door to the sitting room ajar — Four Seasons: deep reveals, thick walls, a courtyard Deluxe.

Noted

Observed on both stays, not measured.

What	Çırağan Palace	Four Seasons Sultanahmet
Wi-Fi	Strong in the room; spotty through the property	—
Noise	Quiet in the room; the street audible on the land side, the call to prayer each night through the window; blackout curtains weak	Silent in the room; the call to prayer carries on the roof, which is the point
Bed	King, medium-firm	King, medium-firm
Water pressure	Strong and hot	Strong and hot, no wait
Spa	—	Kurna Spa — hammam, steam and sauna; books out
The walk that matters	Ortaköy, about fifteen minutes along the shore	Hagia Sophia, three minutes

Where Çırağan wins

Service, to begin with, which surprises people: more staff on the floor means more eyes on you, and it shows in the details — at the Çırağan a screw from my eyeglasses, dropped invisibly to the floor, came back to me via housekeeping and the manager presented like it was the Sultan’s jewel.

The long outdoor pool seen from a sun lounger, a rolled towel on the chair alongside — The long pool from a lounger, towel rolled, the strait doing what the strait does. Nothing in the old city can answer this.

The pool is the other half of the argument: a metre above the strait, ships at arm’s length, and a tranquil haze that settles over the water side for whole afternoons. Nothing in the old city can answer it, and the Four Seasons does not try.

The pool lit blue after dark, the illuminated bridge and city across the water — The walk to dinner: the pool lit blue, the bridge lit red.

A brass water pipe standing on the terrace, its mouthpiece held ready — The nargile at the rail, held ready.

A copper pan of tomato and egg at the breakfast table, plates and juice set around it — Menemen in its copper pan, on the terrace.

And there is more to see without leaving the building: the palace itself, a history wing the equal of any publicly accessible hotel’s, art worth several unhurried hours, and a front-desk tour that might end in the sultan’s suites. Dinner at Tuğra — Anatolian wines packaged by a sommelier who is unreasonably good at it, at a table over the water in the palace — is the single table I would book first at either hotel. Families fit better here too: grounds, pool, and room to run.

The ornate palace facade seen through palm trunks from the terrace cafe — The palace through the palms. Ask the front desk for the tour; it may end in the sultan’s suites.

Where Four Seasons wins

Ease. If Istanbul is a two-day stop, this is the base and it is not close: Hagia Sophia is three minutes away, the Blue Mosque is on the ridge above, and the whole of the old city is a walk. It is the see-all-of-Istanbul-in-a-day home base, and the action outside the door is nonstop and in your face, in the way a first visit wants.

The illuminated hotel facade at dusk with the mosque glowing violet on the skyline — The hotel lit gold at dusk, the mosque going violet behind it. This is what the address buys, and nothing on the Bosphorus has it.

The roof remains the best single view either hotel owns — Hagia Sophia square in front of you, the Marmara opening out beyond — and the small-house warmth is real: names by the first morning, breakfast under a blanket without asking.

The lit courtyard from above, with the floodlit domes and minarets of the Blue Mosque behind it — The courtyard lit at night, the Blue Mosque behind.

A cocktail and its accompaniments on a tray, on a glass table looking out to the water — A cocktail and its tray on the roof.

A gull crossing a pink dawn above the gardens, with Hagia Sophia at the left — A gull crossing Hagia Sophia at dawn.

Verdict by traveller type

Two days in the city: the Four Seasons, for ease of travel, and be on the roof half an hour before sunset.

Three days or more: spend at least one of them — preferably two — at the Çırağan. The pace change is the point: the old city at full speed, then the water at none.

The suspension bridge lit red across the Bosphorus at night, a floodlit mosque on the far shore — The bridge at night, the mosque floodlit on the far shore. The Four Seasons does not have this. It also has no pool.

Four days or better: do both in the same trip, and I mean that strongly. They are different cities that happen to share a name, and the boat between them is one of the great cheap pleasures on earth.

With children: the Çırağan, for the grounds and the pool. For a first visit on a tight clock: Sultanahmet, and take the tram.

Bottom line

Both are excellent. Two days: Sultanahmet, for ease. Three or more: at least one night, preferably two, at the Çırağan. Four or more: both in the same trip, and thank me from the ferry.

See the full set: Çırağan Palace Kempinski — in frames and Four Seasons Sultanahmet — in frames. The stays: Çırağan and Four Seasons Sultanahmet.

The Istanbul galleries

Every photo on this site is my own, shot on the stay. Slide through →

A tray of Turkish sweets set beside a folded napkin and plate on a glass table

The ochre wings of the hotel and the rooftops of Sultanahmet under a pale, hazy sky

The outdoor pool and gardens seen from above, ferries crossing the Bosphorus beyond

Two red tub chairs at a round table with an ice bucket, framed Ottoman prints on the wall above

Close-packed roof tiles in the foreground, the mosque rising through a warm dusk beyond them

Terrace seating on the lawn looking towards the water in early light

Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque lit above the dark gardens between them

A long corridor with a patterned red and cream carpet running towards a lit window

September 2, 2026

Sorn vs. the hotel dining rooms

BANGKOK, THAILAND · SORN vs. THE HOTEL DINING ROOMS · 5 MIN READ

Sorn vs. the hotel dining rooms

Sorn is the hardest table in the country and the best meal of my life. The shock of this piece is how close a hotel dining room with no stars came.

By J.C. Mercer

Verified meals·paid in full

	Sorn, Sukhumvit 26	The Chao Phraya Estate, Charoen Krung
Dined	July 2026	July 2026
Covers	Two, at six, the only sitting there is	Two, across a four-night stay split between the two hotels
Menu	The set tasting menu; there is no other	À la carte across the restaurants, bars and lounges of both hotels
Drinks	The wine pairing	By the glass and from the bar lists
Value verdict	The best meal I have ever eaten, in any country. Go once before you die.	Worth it every other night — and some of Phra Nakhon’s plates matched Sorn’s.

Booked the way any other guest would book it.

The question

Sorn is the most difficult table to get in the country. I have talked to more than a dozen people, inside and outside Thailand, who tried numerous times and failed. It is also the best meal I have ever eaten in my life, in any country, and anyone who can possibly afford it should go once before they die. So the heading above looks like a joke at Sorn’s expense. It is not. Everyone knows about Sorn. What nobody would guess is that a hotel dining room with no stars could put some plates beside it. That is the point of this piece.

Sorn is a destination and behaves like one. One southern Thai tasting menu, dinner only, one sitting a night from six, built from the produce of the southern provinces and cooked over charcoal and in clay pots, with three stars on the door. You cannot order anything else, you cannot come at eight, and the booking is final a month or two before you sit down. It is the best restaurant in Thailand and I have written it up on its own.

The tasting menu open inside its grey folder, courses listed in Thai and English beside the green Sorn diamond — The whole of Sorn’s offer, printed on one card. There is nothing on the other side of it.

The Chao Phraya Estate is the opposite proposition, and the extreme version of it: two hotels, one driveway, more than a dozen places to eat and drink between them. Cantonese, French, Italian, Riviera, Thai, a patisserie coffee at seven in the morning, a bar the city crosses the river for. Both hotels take outside bookings at every room, so none of it requires a key. Nothing needs deciding a month out. And one of those rooms, Phra Nakhon at Capella, came nearer to Sorn than any hotel kitchen has a right to.

Side by side

What	Sorn	The hotel dining rooms
The menu	One set tasting menu; nothing else	Everything, across a dozen rooms; a Thai omelette in the lounge to a nine-course carte blanche upstairs
How far ahead	A monthly release for the month ahead; plan one to two months out and set two alarms	A date, a party size and a time; same day is normal
The commitment	Final on confirmation — no changes, no transfers	None
If you are late	More than thirty minutes and the booking is void	Nothing happens
Who it cannot feed	No vegetarian or vegan menu; no shellfish allergy of any degree; eight core ingredients it will not substitute	Separate vegan and vegetarian menus at the Cantonese room; Côte has no printed menu and simply asks
The stars	Three	Two at Côte, Capella; none at Yu Ting Yuan, whatever the internet says
The table lottery	Book for four rather than two — there are more tables that size	The same lottery at the top of the house: two suites with one name, one on the river and one not
Best for	The trip built around a meal	The meal that has to fit around a trip

A curry served in a stone bowl beside the basket — Sorn: the curry in the stone bowl.

A table of Thai dishes at the open counter, the kitchen team working behind — Capella: Chef Kannika’s open counter at Phra Nakhon.

Grilled morsels on a silver platter with a dish of dressing alongside, on dark marble — Four Seasons: grilled morsels at the terrace bar.

Where Sorn wins

The argument. One kitchen making one case for three hours about the food of a region most visitors never eat: a clay pot broken open at the table, roe and a charred prawn tail in a stone mortar, a card with the whole of the evening printed on one side and nothing on the other. Nobody on the river is trying to do this, and nobody should.

A hand holding a broken clay pot lined with banana leaf, a piece of charred grilled fish inside — A clay pot broken open at the table. This is the sort of thing the second option is not trying to do.

A mound of bright orange roe with a charred prawn tail arching out of it, served in a heavy speckled black stone bowl between two wine glasses — Roe and a charred prawn tail in a stone mortar.

Arrive more than thirty minutes late and the reservation is void, which in this city’s traffic is not a theoretical risk. I left the hotel at half past four for a six o’clock table and arrived, as planned, embarrassingly early. Against that, the estate asks for a date, a party size and a time. So the honest framing is committed against uncommitted — the two-star room at Capella asks the same commitment for the evening.

Where the hotel dining rooms win

Phra Nakhon, and this is the sentence the piece exists for: some of what Chef Kannika Jitsangworn cooked for us at Capella’s Thai room was just as good as some of what Sorn served. It lacked the same feeling of excitement and it was far from the same experience, because that is not what it was trying to be. But taste? She has the goods. Her yellow crab curry stands with the best foods I have ever eaten, and it arrived by walking downstairs.

There are moments in these starred food hunts when you come across an essence. The essence of tomato at Moss in Iceland. The essence of shrimp at Masa in New York. The essence of taro at Fufu Kawaguchiko. This was the essence of crab: she used the powers of the accompanying spices in the liquid to present your mouth with what you knew a crab should be.

She came out afterwards and spent twenty minutes on the spices, sourced from the far reaches of the country. The room runs from late morning to late evening, takes a booking for tonight, and is three minutes’ walk from either bed on the estate. She is a gem, and they must not let her go.

The starred table is not where you think. Côte by Mauro Colagreco, on the second floor at Capella, holds two stars and cooks the coast between Nice and Genoa; its long menu asks the same commitment as Sorn’s. It closes two days a week, which no hotel restaurant is supposed to do, has no printed menu, and asks about allergies at the table.

Yu Ting Yuan, the Cantonese room at Four Seasons, is the one most people think has a star and does not; it is still a very good Cantonese restaurant with the most approachable of the three long menus, an open kitchen and a lit reflecting pool in the window, and it will seat you tonight.

A bowl of green curry with rice noodles, herbs and raw vegetables on a gold-rimmed plate — Green curry and rice noodles, downstairs at Capella.

Fried rice with crab served on a betel leaf, prawn crackers and a dish of chilli alongside — Fried rice with crab, cooked to order.

A layered dessert in a glass jar, coffee and a plate behind it — Dessert in a jar at the Four Seasons.

Anyone with a restriction. Sorn’s terms are unusually blunt and you find them on the page that takes your card: no vegetarian or vegan menu, no shellfish allergy of any degree, eight core ingredients it will not substitute. The hotel side has the opposite problem, which is to say none. If anyone in your party has a hard restriction, the comparison is over before it starts.

One caution for high summer: the Four Seasons’ own Thai restaurant is an outdoor charcoal grill and closes for the season, so in August the Four Seasons cannot put a proper Thai dinner in front of you. Capella can.

Verdict by traveller type

Book Sorn if this dinner is the point of the trip; if you will plan two months out, set two alarms and accept that the commitment is final whatever happens; if nobody in the party is vegetarian, allergic to shellfish or unable to eat any of eight ingredients; and if you can be in Sukhumvit 26 by half past six with certainty. Book for four rather than two if you can.

Book the hotel dining rooms if the trip is bigger than the meal; if you would rather eat well on four consecutive nights than brilliantly on a fixed Tuesday in six weeks’ time; if you want to eat at nine because the flight was late; if there is a dietary restriction anywhere in the party; or if you want a starred table without the scramble, in which case walk to Capella. And book Phra Nakhon on the first night, ask Chef Kannika to decide, and book it again.

Do not book Sorn for a party with mixed dietary needs, for anyone who might not make the date, or on the theory that three stars means the grandest room in town. Do not book the Four Seasons expecting a starred kitchen or, in summer, a Thai dinner; it has neither.

Book Sorn if the dinner is the reason for the trip. Book the hotel dining room if the trip has other reasons.

The sweets under a glass dome on the tiered stand — Sorn’s sweets under glass. Two alarms, two months, and this at the end.

Bottom line

Everyone knows about Sorn — the hardest table in the country and the best meal of my life. Nobody would guess the no-star hotel dining room could compare, and some plates did. Sorn if the dinner is the reason for the trip; the estate if the trip has other reasons — Phra Nakhon first, the yellow crab curry on the table. Book Sorn for four, two months out; book Chef Kannika for tonight.

See the full set: Sorn — in frames. More Bangkok: the Bangkok set.

The Bangkok galleries

Every photo on this site is my own, shot on the trip. Slide through →

A glass of white wine poured at the table, the bottle behind

A suite sitting room with sofas and a wall of glass onto the river

Tables set along the riverside terrace after dark, a lit boat passing on the water

A white-dressed bed against wood panelling, the river visible through the window beyond

A member of the team presenting an ingredient at the table

A hotel bar built around a tall white sculptural centrepiece

A corner living room glazed on two sides, sofa and armchair facing the terrace planting

The printed card standing on the table before service

A long swimming pool with cabanas, the river and city beyond

August 31, 2026

Four Seasons Bangkok: A Resort Address in the Middle of the City

The hotel's riverside terrace at night, low sofas and lit tables under trees, with a dinner boat outlined in blue lights passing on the Chao Phraya

BANGKOK · STAYED MAY 2026 · 6 MIN READ

Four Seasons Bangkok: A Resort Address in the Middle of the City

A river resort in the middle of the city, and the argument for barely leaving it.

By J.C. Mercer

Verified stay·paid in full

Four Seasons Bangkok

Stayed July 2026
Room booked Deluxe River-View Room, king
How it was booked Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts, public rate
What the channel bought upgrade to annex w/ balcony, breakfast, credit, late checkout at 9 pm with full use of pools and spa
Value verdict Worth it for the facilities; lovers go to Capella to get more for less.
When to go June was great. Book this stay

Booked the way any other guest would book it.

Arrival

The hotel keeps a boat at Sathorn pier, and it is the right way to arrive. Bangkok turns two miles into forty minutes without warning and without apology. The river turns the same two miles into about eight, and you spend them on the water watching the city drop from towers to warehouses to the low green wall of the hotel’s own trees. By the time the boat noses into the landing, the argument the building is going to spend three days making has already been made once, for free, from the deck.

The address is on Charoen Krung, a warehouse street with a creative district growing through it — galleries, a design centre, shophouses, the old customs house down the road. It is worth an afternoon. It is not worth pretending it is walkable to anything else: the Skytrain is a long hot walk, and every departure from here is a boat you have to catch or a car you have to allow far too much time for.

Nothing about the approach from the road prepares you for what is behind the gate. The hotel is a sequence of low buildings stepping down to the water rather than a tower standing on it: courtyard, colonnade, reflecting pool, lawn, river. You are never told you have arrived. You just keep going down and the noise keeps dropping.

Water does most of the work. There is standing water almost everywhere on the ground floor, black and shallow and dead flat, set between pale columns so that the palms and the towers on the far bank arrive twice. It is a device, it is obvious, and it works anyway. On the second evening I walked the length of it before dinner for no reason except that it was quiet, which in Bangkok is a reason.

The reflecting pool between the colonnades at night, palms mirrored in the still water — The courtyard at dusk. Everything arrives twice.

The room

I booked a Deluxe River-View Room, the entry river category, and was upgraded to an Annex room with a balcony and a river view: a long window wall, the bed placed to face it, a writing desk that is a desk rather than a shelf with a lamp on it. The proportions are wonderful and the view of the river and pools forces to leave the curtains open.

Two rolled towels and glasses of water on a tray set on a marble table — The tray that follows you around the property: towels, water, nothing to sign.

The detailing is quietly expensive. An orchid on the desk in a heavy black pot, large enough to count as a shrub and replaced rather than watered. Housekeeping moved a watch I had left out onto a small lacquer tray without being asked and without saying anything about it, which is the kind of thing that is either invisible or the entire point.

Noted

Observed on the stay, not measured.

What	Checked on the stay
Wi-Fi	Fast and stable in the room, no drop-outs across three days
Noise	Silent inside; river traffic audible on the terrace, never in the room
Bed	King, medium-firm, pillow menu – Four Seasons Bed Nuff Said
Water pressure	Strong, hot immediately
Blackout curtains	Full, motorised, no light gap
Boat shuttle	Every half hour, morning to late evening, to Sathorn pier and ICONSIAM, by the timetable
Lap pool	35 metres per the hotel; never too crowded

Eating

Yu Ting Yuan is the reason to stay in for one dinner. Cantonese, a Michelin star on the door, a tall glassy room over the water, and dim sum that is worth ordering at dinner even though nobody will suggest it. The service is formal without being stiff, and the wine list runs deep. Good but no Jade Dragon.

Riva del Fiume is the Italian on the river, handmade pasta and a wood-fired oven, and the easiest room in the hotel to eat in twice. Brasserie Palmier is the fish room, with an oyster bar and a chequered floor doing an unembarrassed impression of Paris in the tropics; lunch, not dinner.

A pale dessert in a dark glass bowl on the window ledge, the pool and palms outside — Dessert on the ledge, pool beyond.

BKK Social Club is the bar, and it is a destination rather than a lobby with cocktails: enormous, gold-lit, arched, with a mirrored back bar you can see from the door. Go before nine or accept that you are queuing behind the city. Book it for the drinks not the food. The drinks were world class (the bar manager is literally best in the world) the food meh. They need to send their chef to the Yucatan to learn what guacamole can be.

Have breakfast included. It is served properly, it is large, and it covers the morning until the pool does. It is also the only meal here where the river is not charging admission.

A bartender working tableside in the low-lit bar, bottles ranked behind — The low-lit bar, bottles ranked behind. The saved difference gets spent here.

Three pools, and one of them is for swimming

The one everybody photographs is the long turquoise pool on the terrace above the river, lined with loungers and set into the trees, and it is the sociable one. The one that matters if you actually swim is the lap pool at the wellness centre, long enough to train in rather than to stand in. The spa is in the same building; it books out, and the pools do not.

The long pool running to the water, old trees standing over the far end — The terrace pool, the rain tree, and the city that starts again behind it.

Go early. By ten the terrace has filled and the loungers nearest the water have gone; by two the heat has made the decision for you anyway. Between seven and nine the pool is effectively private and the light on the river is the best of the day.

Six-thirty in the evening is the hour the property is built around. The heat goes out of the stone, the river turns from brown to pewter, and the far bank comes on. Take a drink out onto the terrace rather than staying in the bar for it.

The reflecting pool at sunset seen between two columns, palms silhouetted against the sky — Six-thirty, from the terrace. This is the hour the property was built for.

There is an art space running from the lobby down to the river, showing Thai artists in exhibitions that change, and it is the most unusual thing about the hotel. The piece I kept walking back to was a tall panel of deep blue with a single gold line wandering down it, which is the river, and which is better than that description makes it sound. Give it twenty minutes on the way through rather than walking past it four times, which is what I did before I looked properly.

The pool terrace from above in the afternoon, the river and skyline behind — The pool terrace at three.

A foot raised into frame over the still pool and the trees beyond — The still pool, being used correctly.

Service moments

Quick, unfussy and noticeably young, and it holds at the edges rather than only at the centre. Nothing missed and arguably outstanding but nothing that makes you rethink every hotel you’ve been in before. Think of Four Seasons in a country like Thailand and thats what you get.

I ordered a complex tea at the bar and it took a few minutes to make so they held it for me until I got back. They offered and assisted with a Thai smelling salts container – Ya dom – not go be confused with its even more delightful liquid cousin Ya Dong.

A member of staff bringing a tray to the poolside under a white parasol — A tray on its way to the poolside. Service here comes to you.

A resort built inside a city that has no room for one, which is the whole point and also the whole cost.

Who it is for, and who it is not

Come if you want the days full: three pools, four restaurants, a bar that people cross the city for, and an art space to walk through on the way to all of them. Ask for a high floor on the river side and say so at booking rather than at check-in. Take the boat rather than a car whenever the timetable allows, and note that it stops at ten. Swim before eight.

Look elsewhere if what you want from a river hotel is a hush and a handful of other guests. The ground floor here belongs to Bangkok as much as to you; on a Friday the courtyard was a thoroughfare. The property three minutes south does quiet better, and I have set the two side by side in Capella or Four Seasons. Look elsewhere too if the room is what you are paying for; here the room is very good and the grounds are the exceptional reason to come.

The river at dusk from the hotel boat, the city lit along the far bank.

Bottom line

Four Seasons Bangkok is an urban resort that shares its ground floor with the city, and it is at its best when you use everything it has. Bring the family for a resort getaway with all the tours of Bangkok at your fingertips- and take the boat, not a car.

See the full set: Four Seasons, Bangkok — in frames. More Bangkok: Capella, Bangkok.

Four Seasons Bangkok gallery

Every photo on this site is my own, shot on the stay. Slide through →

A spray of purple-spotted vanda orchids against a pale wall

A large blue and gold panel filling the wall, lit from above

A run of lit mirrors over a dark counter, orange stools set beneath

A treatment bed in a wood-lined room, folded linen on the shelves alongside

Bottles, dishes and folded cloths laid out along a lit counter

August 31, 2026

Four Seasons Sultanahmet: A Former Prison, Two Hundred Paces from Hagia Sophia

ISTANBUL, TÜRKİYE · STAYED APRIL 2025 · 5 MIN READ

Four Seasons Sultanahmet: A Former Prison, Two Hundred Paces from Hagia Sophia

A former prison two hundred paces from Hagia Sophia, and what the conversion did and did not solve.

By J.C. Mercer

Verified stay·paid in full

Four Seasons Istanbul at Sultanahmet

Stayed April 2025
Room booked Deluxe Room, king, courtyard side
How it was booked AmEx FHR
What the channel bought Full Fine Hotels and Resorts Package w/ Upgraded Room
Value verdict Worth it for two nights in the old city; not as a base for a week.
When to go April-June Book this stay

Booked the way any other guest would book it.

Arrival

The street is called Tevkifhane Sokak, which means detention house street, and the hotel is the reason. For half a century this ochre building held prisoners, a good number of them writers and journalists, and the address kept the name after the function changed. Nobody at the hotel is coy about it; the history is on the wall in the corridor, which is the right decision, because a building this shape cannot pretend to have been anything else.

It stands about two hundred paces from Hagia Sophia, with the Blue Mosque on the ridge above and the Sea of Marmara below. There is no hotel site in Istanbul like it, and there is not going to be another one. The quarter has a rhythm you learn by the second day: at seven in the morning the square is yours, by nine the coaches have arrived, and by seven in the evening it has emptied again.

You can read the plan. Corridors run straight and long because they were galleries. Rooms sit in a rhythm because cells did. The proportions are tall and narrow in a way no hotel architect would choose, and the effect is better than it sounds: high ceilings, deep window reveals, thick walls that make the place quiet in a quarter that is not. It is the only hotel I know where “the walls are thick” is a matter of public record.

The exercise yard is now a garden with a glazed pavilion in the middle, and every route through the building crosses it. It is a small hotel, and the scale is the single most important thing to understand about staying here: staff learn your name on the first morning because there are not enough guests for them not to, and the courtyard never feels crowded even when the house is full. There is no lobby scrum, no queue at the desk, and no moment at breakfast when the room turns over and the staff visibly change gear. Small hotels are not automatically better than large ones. This one uses its size properly.

The room

I had a Deluxe Room on the courtyard side. Warm ochre walls, a dark timber headboard, an arched doorway through to the bathroom, a wall sconce rather than a downlight, dark boards underfoot. It is a warm, low-lit, slightly old-fashioned room, and it is a great deal more comfortable than the exterior leads you to expect.

The variation between rooms is real and worth managing. The building has a fixed geometry and the rooms were fitted into it rather than the other way round, so some look at the courtyard, some at a wall, and a small number look at the monuments. If the view is why you are booking, name it at the time of booking and be specific. The difference in the room is small. The difference in what is outside it is enormous. Nobody will volunteer this at check-in, for the same reason nobody volunteers the view from the lesser seats.

An alabaster basin set into black marble, silver fittings and a dark oval mirror above — The alabaster basin in black marble.

A parasol, two chairs and planted boxes on a private roof terrace above the tiles — A private roof terrace, two chairs, the tiles.

Noted

Observed on the stay, not measured.

What	Checked on the stay
Walk to Hagia Sophia	Three minutes, and you are inside the site boundary before that
Noise	Silent in the room; the call to prayer carries on the roof, which is the point
Bed	King, medium-firm
Water pressure	Strong and hot, no wait
Pool	None on site — guests use the pools at the sister hotel on the Bosphorus
Spa	Kurna Spa, hammam, steam and sauna; books out

Eating

Avlu is the courtyard and the pavilion, contemporary Anatolian, and it is the rare hotel dining room in a monument quarter that locals will cross town for. Breakfast there is the meal to plan around rather than the one to rush: a full Turkish spread rather than a continental one with olives added, served outside under a blanket in April. Have it included, and book the dinner before you arrive. Best in class honeycomb and bread. DO NOT SKIP.

Lingo Lingo is the bar and restaurant, La Pistache the patisserie, and The Rooftop is where the evening ends. Four rooms in a hotel this size is generous, and none of them feels like a room that exists because the brand standard required one.

A negroni with a twist of orange in a cut glass, set on a scalloped linen coaster — A negroni, the orange twisted, on linen.

A foamed pink cocktail with a citrus garnish on marble, the card standing behind it — The pink one, foamed, on marble.

The roof, the hammam, and the pool that is not here

The Rooftop is the single best thing the hotel owns. From it, Hagia Sophia sits square in front of you across the archaeological garden, the Blue Mosque rises to the right, and the Marmara opens out beyond both with the shipping lane running across it. Go half an hour before sunset and stay through the call to prayer. In April the sky went pink and stayed pink for twenty minutes.

The sky turning coral above the old town, the sea a flat band on the horizon — Half past seven in April. This is what the address buys.

Half the people up there are not staying in the hotel, which tells you two things: that it is a destination in its own right, and that you should go up before the hour everybody else does. Go on the first evening rather than the last, because if the weather turns you want the second chance.

The spa is built around a hammam, which is the correct thing for a hotel to offer in this city and an easy thing to do badly. This one is done properly: marble, heat, a scrub that is not a gentle exfoliation, and a rest afterwards you should allow an hour for rather than the twenty minutes you will be tempted to take. Book it for the afternoon of a heavy walking day, and book it before you arrive, because every guest in the house wants the same two slots. A Hammam of this quality is a must do before death.

There is no pool. Guests are sent to the sister hotel on the Bosphorus, which is a car ride across the city, and on a hot day in July that is not a facility, it is an outing. I did it and vote worth it. The hammam is excellent, but nobody has ever done lengths in one.

Service moments

The concierge desk is expert on the old city, which is rarer than it should be in a quarter this heavily toured, and the advice I was given about when to walk to which monument was better than anything I had planned. Ask, and then do what they say. Spend on a guide rather than on the minibar; the monuments are better with one, and the desk will find you one who does not end the tour in a carpet shop.

Names by the first morning. Breakfast under a blanket without having to ask for the blanket. A second Turkish coffee that arrived because the first cup was empty, not because I had looked up. The history of the building told to me in the corridor by someone who had clearly told it a hundred times and still liked it.

The courtyard and surrounding streets lit at dusk, the city running down to the water — The streets running down to the water at dusk, from the roof. The hammam is under them.

The address is the argument. Everything else here is good; nothing else here is unrepeatable.

Who it is for, and who it is not

Come for two or three nights of the old city on foot, for a first visit to Istanbul, or for the roof at sunset. Walk to Hagia Sophia at opening rather than after breakfast. Take the tram or a boat rather than a car when you cross to the modern city, because the traffic on the bridges will otherwise decide your evening for you.

Look elsewhere if a pool is part of what you are buying; the other Four Seasons in this city has one and this one does not pretend to. Look elsewhere for a week-long base: Sultanahmet empties at seven and fills with coach parties at nine, and the eating and drinking that make Istanbul worth a week are across the water in Karaköy, Beyoğlu and Cihangir. Every evening here involves a decision to leave. The Çırağan, on the Bosphorus, is the other way to do this city, and I have written it up.

Daylight over the rooftops of the old town, with shipping on the water beyond — Daylight over the old town, shipping on the water beyond. Two hundred paces to Hagia Sophia, and this.

Bottom line

There is no other site like it in Istanbul, and the hotel knows not to compete with it. Book a courtyard-facing Deluxe for two nights, and be on the roof half an hour before sunset.

See the full set: Four Seasons Sultanahmet — in frames. More Istanbul: Çırağan Palace Kempinski.

Four Seasons Sultanahmet gallery

Every photo on this site is my own, shot on the stay. Slide through →

The hotel lit gold against a deep blue evening, the water flat beyond the rooftops

The great dome and its minarets across the archaeological gardens under moving cloud

Coral cloud over the tiled roofs, with the water and the far shore beyond

August 31, 2026

Capella or Four Seasons: the two hotels that share a driveway in Bangkok

CHAO PHRAYA ESTATE · CAPELLA vs. FOUR SEASONS · 5 MIN READ

Capella or Four Seasons: the two hotels that share a driveway in Bangkok

Same owner, same riverbank, three minutes apart on foot. I stayed at both back to back, and one of them gave me the best service I have had anywhere.

By J.C. Mercer

Verified stays·paid in full

	Capella Bangkok	Four Seasons Bangkok
Stayed	July 2026	July 2026
Room booked	Riverfront Premier, king, third floor	Deluxe River-View Room, king
How it was booked	Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts, public rate	Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts, public rate
What the channel bought	Upgrade to Suite w/ Plunge Pool	Upgrade to Annex Suite w/ Balcony
Value verdict	Worth it in any season; the service is the product.	Worth it for the facilities, the name, the pools — if you do not care about these, go Capella and get more for less.
When to go	Any month — June and July are hot, less busy, and we had a wonderful time indoors. Book Capella	June was great. Book Four Seasons

Both stays booked the way any other guest would book them.

The question

The same company built both hotels on the same stretch of the east bank. They share a driveway. They share a river shuttle. You can walk from one lobby to the other in about three minutes, past a security post that waves you through without asking which guest you are. The awards lists put them next to each other too and disagree about the order, which is the most useful thing an awards list has ever done. In 2025 the World’s 50 Best list had Four Seasons at number two and Capella at number three; I rank them the other way around. But it all depends on what you want out of your stay, which is the whole of this piece.

I stayed at both back to back, booked the same way, in the entry river room at each — and the channel upgraded me at both: a suite with a plunge pool at Capella, an annex suite with a balcony at Four Seasons. Back to back is the way to do it, and I recommend it without reservation, which is not a word I use lightly about hotels. The short version: Four Seasons is a resort that happens to sit in a city — three pools, six places to eat and drink, a spa with a boxing ring in it, enough going on that you can stay four days without leaving. Capella is low-rise, every room facing the river with a balcony that opens, a personal assistant assigned to your room, and a hush over the whole place. And Capella gave me the best service I have had in any hotel, anywhere, which settles more of this than I expected.

River view from a Capella balcony — The view that comes with every Capella room.

Both sit on Charoen Krung, the oldest paved road in the city and the most interesting neighbourhood either could have landed in: galleries, coffee roasters, old shophouses running north toward Chinatown. The shared shuttle boat is the thing to use. ICONSIAM, across the water, is a world-class mall and a five-minute run by boat, every hour on the hour, with a two-minute walk on either side of it — I popped over for a snack and a drink more than once, and a summer afternoon there is time well spent. Sathorn pier and the Skytrain put the rest of the city twenty minutes beyond. Guests of either hotel can board, and the crews do not check.

Side by side

What	Capella Bangkok	Four Seasons Bangkok
Location	East bank, low-rise, set back from the road	East bank, same estate, three minutes north
Entry room	Riverfront, private balcony on every room	River or courtyard by category; no balcony
View	River from every room, no exceptions	River or courtyard, depending on category
Vibe	Boutique hideaway, close to silent	Urban resort, full of life
Pools	One infinity pool, quiet	Three, including a lap pool long enough to train in
Spa	Auriga, seven suites; the couples’ room is the beauty	Two floors: heated indoor pool, boxing ring, aerial yoga
Gym	Adequate	Among the best hotel gyms anywhere
Signature table	Côte by Mauro Colagreco	Yu Ting Yuan
Bar	Stella, intimate	BKK Social Club, the best drink on the estate
Breakfast	Better ceiling, less reliable floor	Bigger, safer, never wrong
Service model	Named Culturist, 24 hours — the best service I have had anywhere	Deep bench, consistent, less personal
Children	Fine, but book a villa	Kids’ club, children’s pool, room to spread out
Best for	Being looked after; the river from every window; slowing down	Families, facilities, dining, a full day in

Noted

Observed on both stays, not measured.

What	Capella	Four Seasons
Noise	Long-tail boats from 6am with the balcony door open; silent shut	Silent; road noise never reached the room
Bed	King, medium-hard — a true delight of a night’s sleep	King, medium-firm, pillow menu — nuff said
The bath	An attendant will draw it	—
Late checkout	—	Nine at night on the channel, with full run of the pools and spa
Water pressure	Strong; hot almost at once	Strong, hot on demand
Air conditioning	Quiet, held temperature overnight	Quiet, held temperature overnight
Shuttle boat to Sathorn pier	About ten minutes across; every half hour or so by the timetable	About ten minutes across; every half hour or so by the timetable
Time to first greeting, mornings	Immediate, both days	Immediate, both days

Where Capella wins

The room, if the river is why you came. Every room faces it and every room has a balcony that opens; at Four Seasons the entry rooms face the river or the courtyard and none has a balcony — the channel upgraded me into an annex suite that had one, which proves they exist and that you cannot book one by category. The courtyard is beautiful, planted with reeds standing in for rice fields. It is not the river.

A Capella river-view suite — At Capella, every room faces the river.

The service, and not by a little. The Culturist is a personal assistant with a better name: mine got a same-day table for two at Gaggan on two hours’ notice, and phoned ahead as I walked past the restaurants so that staff I had never met greeted me by name.

When I was late for the boat, someone from the front desk, without a radio, ran down the garden to hold it. I have built the Capella review around this and will not repeat all of it here. Four Seasons service is professional, consistent and impersonal by design; with that many rooms nobody is learning your coffee order by Tuesday. The floor never drops. It also never rises.

A bath being drawn, petals scattered on the water — The bath, drawn by an attendant.

A staff member arranging a tray in the suite — Service, in the suite.

Canapés arranged on a small table — Canapés, unasked.

Thai food. Phra Nakhon gave me the best Thai meal I had in the city; by the second night the chef was cooking to order and came out to explain the spices. Côte, the Riviera room, is the harder table to get, so reserve before you fly. Breakfast at Capella, on the terrace, is the better meal when it lands.

Shared Thai dishes across a table — Phra Nakhon’s table, shared.

The open kitchen at work — The open kitchen, mid-service.

Quiet. One infinity pool that stayed calm through a weekend in high season with loungers going spare, which no Four Seasons pool will ever manage, and a couples’ room in the spa that is the most beautiful spa space I have been inside.

The Capella infinity pool with city view — Capella keeps a single, quiet infinity pool.

Where Four Seasons wins

Range. Yu Ting Yuan holds a star and does dim sum and Peking duck over the water garden; Brasserie Palmier does the French, Riva del Fiume the Italian and the breakfast that is bigger, safer and never wrong. BKK Social Club is the single best room on the estate in which to have a drink, and half of Bangkok knows it. Go before nine.

Riverside dining at Four Seasons at night — Riverside at Four Seasons, where BKK Social Club draws the crowd.

Water and iron. Three outdoor pools stepping down toward the river, a lap pool long enough to train in, and a wellness centre across two floors with a heated indoor pool, a boxing ring and an aerial yoga studio. You can take a paddleboard class in the lap pool, which is either delightful or absurd, and I came down on delightful. Capella’s gym is adequate; Capella guests should walk over.

A spa treatment room — A treatment room, upstairs.

The bed. The beds at Four Seasons are the best thing in either building — high ceilings, picture windows, a pillow menu — and the Noted box agrees.

Children. A kids’ club, a children’s pool, three pools to spread a family across, and enough rooms that nobody notices a loud table at breakfast. Capella takes children and treats them well, but the place is built around quiet; with children, book a villa.

Arrival, if you like a show. Four Seasons announces itself: reflecting pools, carved white elephants, a lobby holding more contemporary Thai art than most galleries in the city. I checked in during a rush and it stayed calm, cold towels and coconut water arriving before the bags were down. Capella’s lobby is small enough that staff clock you on arrival and keep clocking you. One hotel wants you to look at it. The other one is looking at you.

Verdict by traveller type

A couple, or anyone travelling alone who wants to be looked after: Capella, without hesitation. A family: Four Seasons, without much argument. A gym person, or anyone who will use three pools: Four Seasons. A first visit to Bangkok with the restaurants as the point: Four Seasons for range, then cross the driveway to eat at Phra Nakhon. Anyone who has stayed in enough hotels to have stopped being impressed by them: Capella. That was me, and it worked.

Can you do both? Yes, and I would. Two nights each is enough to see the difference, and the walk between lobbies takes three minutes with a bag. Both open their restaurants to outside guests, so treat the estate as one menu and book across it. Do Capella second, and take the tired flight.

And for balance, because the service story above tilts one way: the Four Seasons desk produced its own quiet marvel — a late checkout at nine at night, with full run of the pools and the spa until the car came. No tired flight has ever been better prepared for.

Book Four Seasons if you want the days full. Book Capella if you want to be looked after.

Bottom line

Capella for the service, which is the best I have had in any hotel anywhere; Four Seasons for the days you want full. Book the high-floor river room at whichever you choose, and eat at the other one.

See the full set: Capella, Bangkok — in frames and Four Seasons, Bangkok — in frames. More Bangkok: the Bangkok set.

The Bangkok galleries

Every photo on this site is my own, shot on the stay. Slide through →

August 14, 2026

Tag: Four Seasons