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Yaowarat (Chinatown) nightlife

Yaowarat is Bangkok's Chinatown and its late night runs on food rather than dance floors — neon-lit stalls, seafood and roast duck carts working long past midnight. Behind that, a newer cocktail scene has grown into the shophouses, with bars up unmarked staircases and behind doors that give nothing away.

Yaowarat (Chinatown) nightlife at night — illustrative artwork, not a photograph of the area
Illustrative image — not a photograph of Yaowarat (Chinatown).

Yaowarat vs RCA

These are barely the same activity. RCA is large rooms, loud sound and a door fee; Yaowarat is eating in the street and then finding a small bar that does not advertise itself. Yaowarat is the better night if you want atmosphere, food and cocktails made properly. RCA is the answer if you want to dance. The one genuine overlap is the hour — both run very late.

Who goes

Mixed and mostly local at street level, more international in the cocktail bars. It skews older and more food-led than the Sukhumvit strips.

What it costs

Street food is among the cheapest good eating in the city; the cocktail bars are priced like cocktail bars anywhere. The gap between the two ends of the same evening is unusually wide.

How the night runs

Food runs late and the bars run later. It fills from dinner onward rather than after 11, so it starts earlier than a club strip and finishes at a similar hour.

Getting home

MRT Wat Mangkon closes before the bars do. Yaowarat Road is wide and easy to be collected from, so a ride app is straightforward once the trains stop.

Pick Yaowarat for

  • —Eating properly before or instead of drinking
  • —Cocktail bars rather than dance floors
  • —A night with no dress code and no door
  • —Somewhere that feels like the city rather than a strip

Go elsewhere if

you want a club. There is no large-format nightlife here, and the appeal is precisely that.

Getting there

MRT Wat Mangkon puts you on Yaowarat Road itself, which is a considerable improvement on how it used to be reached.

Questions

Is Chinatown Bangkok good at night?

It is one of the best late-night areas in the city, though for food and cocktail bars rather than clubs. Yaowarat Road's street food runs well past midnight and a speakeasy scene has grown up in the shophouses around it.

Is Soi Nana in Chinatown the same as Nana on Sukhumvit?

No, and they are frequently confused. Chinatown's Soi Nana is a short street of cocktail bars and speakeasies near Yaowarat. Nana on Sukhumvit is an entirely different area with an entirely different reputation. Same name, opposite evenings.

How do I get to Yaowarat?

MRT Wat Mangkon opens directly onto Yaowarat Road, which made the area far easier to reach than it once was.

What this page does not cover

This is an orientation page. We list individual venues for RCA, where we cover 14 of them in detail, and not yet for Yaowarat — so this page describes the area rather than naming bars we cannot yet stand behind.

See the RCA venues

Other Bangkok nightlife areas

  • RCA (Royal City Avenue)

    A purpose-built nightlife strip of large clubs on one road in Huai Khwang.

  • Thonglor

    Upmarket bars, rooftops and speakeasies along Sukhumvit Soi 55.

  • Sukhumvit

    The long spine of Bangkok nightlife, from Nana to Ekkamai.

  • Khao San Road

    Backpacker nightlife, street bars and the cheapest drinks in the city.

  • Silom

    Bangkok's LGBTQ+ nightlife centre, around Soi 2 and Soi 4.

  • Ekkamai

    Design-led bars, rooftops and one serious club, on Sukhumvit Soi 63.

By the RoyalCityAvenue.com editorial team. Last updated . Venue details change often — how we verify.