BREAKFAST WITH ANTHONY TYLER | MANDARIN ORIENTAL, BANGKOK

( words)

Adrian Mourby meets the general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok. For Breakfast.

Kate Tadman-Mourby takes the photos

Anthony Tyler looks good on his 52 years, something he puts down to not going out to many dinners. “As GM of the Mandarin Oriental I could be out to dinner most evenings. I prefer lunches, as they start at a certain time and usually last 90 minutes. Dinners in Bangkok can go on all night.”

He also hardly drinks. “Maybe three times a year.”

We meet on the Verandah, a perfect place for breakfast as it sits on the hotel’s river terrace with an ever-changing floorshow of boats passing by, including the hotel’s own shuttles which take guests across the Chao Prao River to the hotel spa. It also takes them down river to Salthorn Central Pier from where the BTS “Sky-train” can be accessed. This elevated railway allows for rapid transit across the famously gridlocked city. In fact Anthony knows many people in senior positions in Bangkok who, when they have to travel across the city, send their driver early to the BTS station that is nearest to their destination, avoiding the traffic-choked streets for the bulk of their journey.

“But the River has everything you need nowadays,” says Anthony. All Bangkok’s major  historic sites – the temples and palaces – are accessible by this major waterway and so is the Icon Siam shopping centre just opposite where every major international brand has an outlet.

What is now the Mandarin Oriental was known as "The Oriental Hotel" since the 19th century. 

It was built  where the town reached the shores of the Chao Phraya, then and today its major waterway. It’s an area now known as the Creative District but Anthony refers to this popular area of the city simply as “The River“.

After I order the “Oriental” Breakfast – bircher muesli, eggs, bacon, a fruit platter and toast - while Anthony has something very light – plain yoghurt with berries. We are meeting at 8am but he has already had one breakfast with his teenage daughter who lives with him, her 9-year-old brother and their mother in the hotel. I ask how his children like hotel life and he says they have never known anything different.

Anthony was Food & Beverage Manager at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok 1998-2001, then he spent 14 years with Four Seasons followed by seven years with Mandarin Oriental in China, until returning to Bangkok in 2020.

Adrian Mourby (left) meets Anthony Tyler

“How many languages do you speak?” I ask as breakfast arrives.

“Four. English, French, German, and Spanish comfortably and then two others not so well.”

“Do you speak Thai?"

“No,” he says firmly. “It is a tonal language and very difficult if, like me, you have no experience of tonal languages.”  

So we turn to the subject of Thailand’s oldest and best known hotel.

“How important is the hotel’s history as a marketing tool?” I ask. It is a common question one asks at old hotels but here it receives a very emphatic answer. “It is everything. It is the pillar on which we market ourselves. It is what sets us apart.”

The Mandarin Oriental (originally just The Oriental) was the first western-style hotel in the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand). The old Oriental opened on the shores of the river and was run by a succession of owners and managers obsessed with the highest European standards. One owner even imported a Viennese orchestra to play in the lobby.

In 1890 HM Chulalongkorn, King of Siam, was so impressed by the hotel that he lodged his visitor, the future Tsar of Russia, here. The story goes that Crown Prince Nicholas’ officers drank the hotel dry on a daily basis.

The fascinating story of its growth to 331 rooms is told in The Most Famous Hotels in the World book THE ORIENTAL — THE AMAZING TALE OF BANGKOK’S LEGENDARY HOTEL  by Andreas Augustin.

Almost all great writers have also stayed here, including Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward, Graham Greene and James Michener. Each of those four is commemorated in a special section of the Authors' Wing which is the ground floor of the original hotel. There you also find the portraits of other authors and celecbities including David Bowie, the Prince of Wales (today HM King Charles), Liz Taylor, Sylvester Stallone, Julie Andrews, ... — a picture collection of 365 portraits presented by famoushotels. 

Upstairs you find the "Oriental Journey", a trip into the hotel's history And here are the prestigious Royal and Ambassador suites, often used by world leaders, while the old hotel lobby is now a place for the most glamorous of afternoon teas in Bangkok. As Anthony points out, a lot of Thais come to the Mandarin Oriental for tea or staycations because it has a reputation for exceptional glamour.

Anthony Tyler was born in the small Swiss town of Vevey in 1971. Although his family were not in the hotel trade, he had the hotels in mind from an early age as his ticket out of small town Switzerland. “I was desperate to see the world.” ^

See it he has and now he sees the world very much coming to him. Anthony arrived as GM of the Mandarin Oriental in September 2020 and saw it through the pandemic. “At one point with all the lockdown restrictions we were down to one guest!”

The hotel has almost wholly rebuilt its operation since May 2022 when restrictions in Thailand were eased. “We are looking to complete the reopening in the third quarter of 2023 with our Thai restaurant and cultural show across the river. When the Chinese border is fully reopened we will be back to normal. This hotel is very popular with visitors from China. 

Party time at The Oriental in the 1920s

THE GM's QUESTIONAIRE

10 short questions to Anthony Tyler, GM at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok

1. How would you describe your job to a four year-old child?  Making people happy.

2. What are you reading at the moment? Lesley Danker’s history of Raffles Singapore, A Life Intertwined. I’m not very interested in fiction.

3. What was the last show that really impressed you? Katherine Jenkins at Bangkok’s annual festival of dance and music last year.  

4. If you were a hotel inspector what would you always check first? Breakfast. It’s the one facility that every guest uses.

5. Can tourism change the world? Yes. But for better or worse?

6. What is the quintessential dress you pack on all your journeys? Dinner jacket for work journeys. Wash and wear clothing when I’m not working. I pack as light as possible.

7. Do you prefer to be a guest or a host? Host. I enjoy setting the stage for other people’s enjoyment.

8. What is the best advice you ever received? To be kind. That was from my parents

9. What is your ultimate goal for this hotel? To maintain it as one of the finest in the world.

10. If you were a crayon what colour would you be?  Blue, but I can’t tell you why.

A Thai dancer at the Mandarin Oriental, by Michelle Chaplow