Ayutthaya Retreat

The setting is the reason to come. It's a hotel as well as a restaurant, built in traditional Thai wooden-house style, with a pond running through the middle of the dining area and tables both indoors and out. Cats wander the property. After a morning climbing around the ruins, it's a calm place to sit down with a cold drink and a mango dessert.

The kitchen does Thai classics and plates them carefully, and there's a wood-fired oven turning out pizza that nobody would call fancy. Two things to weigh up. Service can be slow when the kitchen's busy, with one diner clocking around 50 minutes on pizzas, so don't come with a train to catch. And one reviewer thought the pork with basil used a different, more perfumed basil than the version you'd get at a street stall. If you want your Thai food exactly as you know it, order simply. Overnight guests get breakfast, a bar and an outdoor pool, and hospitality is where this place consistently wins people over.