Rooftop Bars in Chiang Mai: 10 Venues We Recommend

The lift at Meliá Chiang Mai opens on the 22nd floor and almost everybody turns west first. Doi Suthep sits on that side, and the temple on its shoulder lights up before the city below does. The rooftop bars in Chiang Mai all sell a version of that sightline, and the differences between them come down to how high they sit, what time they open, and what the kitchen does while you look.

Which rooftop bars in Chiang Mai are worth the lift ride?

Ten venues hold up in August 2026: MAI The Sky Bar on the 22nd floor of Meliá Chiang Mai, HONG’s Sky Bar on the 17th floor of the InterContinental, ARISE at AMANOR Hotel, YaYee Rooftop off Sirimangkalajarn Road, SALT & FIRE at icon iT, Copacabana Rooftop Diner facing Tha Phae Gate, Thapae Grill, The Moat House, and JAI LOY Cafe & Rooftop, which opens at 8am.

The list spans a 22nd-floor hotel bar with a door charge and a hostel roof where a beer costs less than a coffee in Nimman. Opening times run from 8am to 6pm, which matters more than most guides admit, because half of these places are shut when visitors go looking for a sunset drink in the low season.

MAI The Sky Bar

This is the highest bar in the city, sitting about 63 metres up on the 22nd floor of Meliá Chiang Mai. The kitchen is Spanish rather than Thai, which separates it from everything else on this list. Galician-style octopus with smoked paprika and house-made ham croquettes are the dishes the hotel leads with, and the drinks list runs to signature cocktails built around Thai botanicals. A glass walkway joins the two bar levels, and the lower level has the more comfortable seating.

An entry charge applies to guests not staying at the hotel, redeemable against food and drinks. Coverage from 2022 and 2023 put that charge at 250 baht, while a recent guest review describes 600 baht, so confirm the figure when booking. Meliá states the bar received a Tatler Best Spotlight 2026 award. Reservations are worth making, though guests report that walk-ins are accepted.

  • Address: Charoen Prathet Road, Chang Khlan, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50100
  • Telephone: +66 52 090 600
  • Hours: Daily 6.00pm to midnight. Guides published in 2024 list a 4.00pm opening, so the earlier time is no longer reliable
  • Rating: 4.9 from 1,782 Google reviews
  • Website: melia.com
  • Map: Google Maps

HONG’s Sky Bar

Asset World Corporation opened HONG’s with IHG in March 2024, putting a Chinese restaurant on the 16th floor of the InterContinental Chiang Mai The Mae Ping and the bar on the 17th above it. The bar serves Chinese tapas alongside the cocktail list, and the kitchen downstairs covers Sichuan, Cantonese and Taiwanese cooking. The terrace uses low lounge seating behind frameless glass, so the Doi Suthep view stays unbroken from a seated position.

Two practical points sit in the booking terms rather than the marketing. The bar closes in heavy rain, which is worth knowing between June and October. Corkage on wine brought in runs to 1,000 baht plus taxes per bottle. Tables held more than 15 minutes past the reservation time are released. The hotel is owned by AWC Hotel Property Mae Ping Company Limited and runs a birthday package at the bar with advance booking.

arise rooftop bar

ARISE Rooftop Bar

ARISE opens at 3.00pm, earlier than any other hotel rooftop in the city, which makes it the one to use when the plan starts in the afternoon. The bar wraps around a see-through infinity pool with Doi Suthep behind it, and the pool itself is reserved for hotel guests. The drinks are mixed to order rather than poured from pre-batched bottles, a distinction regular visitors to the Nimman rooftops raise unprompted. Downstairs, lumi runs Italian cooking with Thai dishes alongside.

The names have changed twice and older guides have not caught up. The hotel traded as akyra Manor Chiang Mai and is now AMANOR Hotel Chiang Mai, a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. The bar was called Rise and is now ARISE. Anyone searching the old names will find listings that still work, pointing at the same building on Soi Nimmanhaemin 9.

  • Address: AMANOR Hotel Chiang Mai, 22/2 Soi Nimmanhaemin 9, Su Thep, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200
  • Telephone: +66 53 216 219
  • Hours: Daily from 3.00pm. The Google profile lists a midnight close and two independent reviews list 1.00am
  • Rating: 4.6 from 509 Google reviews
  • Website: amanorhotels.com
  • Map: Google Maps

YaYee Rooftop

YaYee is the smallest room on this list and the one residents name most often when the question is where to take a visitor without making an event of it. The bar sits on the fifth floor of Hotel YaYee, reached by a glass lift past reception, and the whole space points at Doi Suthep. The food is pizza and bar dishes rather than a full kitchen. The review count is low because most people who go are already in Nimman and do not think to write it up.

The hotel publishes the working detail that other listings miss. Last order for food is 10.00pm and last order for drinks is 11.00pm, so arriving at 11.30pm gets you a seat and nothing else. Reservations require arrival before 7.00pm, and walk-ins are taken after that. The previous version of this article listed the hotel switchboard rather than the bar, and the reservation line below is the correct one.

  • Address: Fifth floor, Hotel YaYee, Sai Nam Phueng alley, Sirimangkalajarn Road, Su Thep, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200
  • Telephone: +66 93 313 8989, or LINE official @yayeerooftop
  • Hours: Daily 4.00pm to midnight. Last food order 10.00pm, last drink order 11.00pm
  • Rating: 4.6 from 58 Google reviews for the bar, and 4.6 from 434 for the hotel
  • Website: yayee.co.th
  • Map: Google Maps

SALT & FIRE Rooftop Bar

SALT & FIRE sits on the ninth floor of the icon iT office building on Hussadhisawee Soi 4, north of the old city and away from the Nimman cluster. The menu splits between Thai and Italian, with grilled dishes as the house specialism, and a DJ plays later in the evening. A lift runs directly to the bar and there is parking on site, which is unusual among the rooftops and useful for anyone driving.

The venue traded as Bar Glory and rebranded to SALT & FIRE, a change its own Instagram account documents. Reviews split on value: the view draws consistent praise and the drinks draw some criticism for the price. Private events are taken. Opening time is stated as 5.00pm by the venue and 5.30pm by its Google profile.

  • Address: Ninth floor, icon iT, 29 Hussadhisawee Soi 4, Si Phum, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200
  • Telephone: +66 93 318 4980
  • Hours: Daily to midnight, opening at 5.00pm according to the venue and 5.30pm according to its Google profile
  • Rating: 4.4 from 170 Google reviews
  • Instagram: @saltandfire.chiangmai
  • Map: Google Maps

Copacabana Rooftop Diner

Copacabana has the best view of Tha Phae Gate of anywhere on this list, looking straight down the wall with Doi Suthep behind it, and it is the hardest to find. The entrance is through a ground-floor noodle shop trading as Lanzhou Noodles. Walk in past the tables, take the stairs, keep climbing to the top and go through the door to the outside. The room is set up as a beach bar, with a DJ on some evenings and a menu that runs to smoked duck breast, prawn cocktail and pasta alongside the drinks.

The Google Maps pin does not sit on the entrance, a problem several visitors flag, so the noodle shop is the landmark to aim for rather than the pin. The rating is high and the review base is moderate, which suggests the entrance is filtering the crowd more than the food is. Service speed draws occasional complaints at busy times.

Thapae Grill

Thapae Grill runs across five floors on Ratchadamnoen Road with the top floor open to the sky and a 360-degree view over the old city. The grilled skewers are the reason to come, cheap enough that a table can order widely, and the Thai menu is long with vegetarian and vegan dishes marked. The rooftop looks down on the Sunday Walking Street, which turns the top floor into the best seat in the old city one evening a week and makes booking essential on Sundays.

The building traded as Improvise Bar before the current owners took it on. The glass floor that older reviews describe has been covered over and that area is now used for dining. The venue describes itself as the only rooftop restaurant in the old city, though The Moat House operates a rooftop terrace a few streets north. There is no lift, and staff carry food up all five floors.

  • Address: 27-29 Ratchadamnoen Road, Phra Singh, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200
  • Telephone: +66 80 374 5271
  • Hours: Daily 11.30am to 11.30pm. The English page of the venue’s own site states midnight, while its Thai page and Google profile both state 11.30pm
  • Rating: 4.5 from 1,645 Google reviews
  • Website: thapaegrill.com
  • Map: Google Maps

The Moat House

The Moat House runs two bars in one building on Mun Mueang Road. The ground floor is a sports bar with televised football, and the third-floor terrace is open air and quieter, looking over the moat and the old city wall towards Doi Suthep. The events calendar is the draw for residents: language exchange on Tuesday at 7.00pm, stand-up comedy on Thursday at 8.00pm, acoustic music on the rooftop on Friday at 7.00pm, and musicians most weekend evenings. The kitchen splits into a daytime menu until 2.30pm and an evening menu until 10.00pm.

Do not telephone. The venue states plainly on its own website that there are too many musicians playing for staff to hear the phone, and directs enquiries to email or social media. Rooftop seats for Loy Krathong and the lantern festivals sell out well in advance, because the terrace looks directly over the moat processions. The previous version of this article listed the address as 33/3 Moonmuang Road, and the venue writes it as 3/33 Mun Mueang Road.

  • Address: 3/33 Mun Mueang Road, Si Phum, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200
  • Telephone: None published. The venue asks to be contacted by email or social media instead
  • Hours: Daily from 8.00am until late. The Google profile lists an 11.45pm close
  • Rating: 4.6 from 539 Google reviews
  • Website: themoathouse.info, and @themoathousecm on Instagram
  • Map: Google Maps

JAI LOY Cafe & Rooftop

JAI LOY opens at 8.00am, which no other rooftop bar in this article does except The Moat House, and it is the cheapest place on the list by a wide margin. The building is a hostel on Chang Moi Road with a cafe at street level and the bar on the fifth floor. The rooftop looks across the old city rooftops and temple spires to the mountains, and the happy hour lands over sunset with a DJ on some evenings. Prices sit at hostel level rather than hotel level.

Guests do not need to be staying to use the roof. The food runs to pasta, bar snacks and desserts, and the coffee downstairs is the reason a lot of people find the place before they ever go up. The rating is strong across a large review base, which is unusual for a venue at this price. A small lift serves the building.

Which rooftop bar in Chiang Mai is the highest?

MAI The Sky Bar at Meliá Chiang Mai is the highest, on the 22nd floor at roughly 63 metres. HONG’s Sky Bar is second at the 17th floor of the InterContinental Chiang Mai The Mae Ping. Everything else on this list sits between the third and ninth floors: SALT & FIRE at icon iT is on the ninth, JAI LOY on the fifth floor, and The Moat House on the third.

The gap between second and third place is large, and it is a planning rule rather than an accident. Both of the tall bars sit east and south of the moat in the commercial zone, where high-rise building is permitted. The height difference changes what you see. From the 22nd floor the city reads as a grid with the mountain behind it. From a fifth-floor terrace like YaYee or JAI LOY, you are level with the temple roofs and the trees, which is a closer and warmer view of the same city.

Why are there so few rooftop bars inside the old city?

Chiang Mai’s city plan designates the moat area a cultural conservation zone with a building height limit of 23 metres, about eight floors, and caps buildings within 100 metres of a temple at nine metres. Regulations introduced in 2016 permit high-rise construction only in specified high-density zones outside the old city. This is why Thapae Grill, five floors, and The Moat House, three floors, are the tallest rooftop options inside the walls.

Visitors read the low old city skyline as charm. Residents read it as zoning. The practical effect is that the two categories of rooftop bar in this city are genuinely different products, and comparing them on view alone misses the point. The old city rooftops give you the wall, the moat, the temple roofs and the walking street directly below. The tall bars outside the moat give you distance and the full sweep of Doi Suthep, and they charge for it.

The rule also explains the entrance at Copacabana. Older shophouse buildings on Tha Phae Road were never designed for rooftop trade, so access gets improvised through whatever exists at street level, which in that case is a noodle shop. The rooftops inside the walls are conversions, and they behave like conversions.

What happens to the rooftop view during smoke season?

Between late February and April, agricultural and forest burning fills the Chiang Mai valley with PM2.5 and the mountain view disappears. March is the worst month. Chiang Mai has recorded PM2.5 levels above 200 micrograms per cubic metre during this period, and readings regularly run several times the World Health Organization guideline. Doi Suthep becomes invisible from the city on the worst days, which removes the reason to sit on a roof at all.

No guide to rooftop bars written for visitors mentions this, and every resident plans around it. The valley sits between mountain ranges and a temperature inversion traps the smoke at ground level, so altitude provides no escape. A 22nd-floor terrace in March delivers a grey wall where the sunset should be.

The season varies in length and severity year to year and nobody predicts it accurately in advance. Check a live air quality reading on the day rather than trusting a forecast. From November to February the air is clear and the evenings are cool, which is the reason rooftop tables are hardest to book in those months. The rainy season from June to October brings a different problem, since several of these bars close their terraces in heavy rain, HONG’s Sky Bar among them by its own booking terms.

Which Chiang Mai rooftop bars open before sunset?

JAI LOY Cafe & Rooftop and The Moat House both open at 8.00am. Thapae Grill opens at 11.30am and serves lunch on the roof. ARISE opens at 3.00pm, the earliest of the hotel bars. HONG’s Sky Bar and YaYee Rooftop both open at 4.00pm. SALT & FIRE opens at 5.00pm and Copacabana at 5.30pm. MAI The Sky Bar opens last, at 6.00pm, by which point the sun has already gone in the cool season.

Sunset in Chiang Mai falls around 5.50pm in December and closer to 7.05pm in June, so the opening time that works in July fails in January. A 6.00pm opening at MAI The Sky Bar means the sunset is over before the doors open for four months of the year. Anyone planning around the light in the cool season should start at ARISE, YaYee or one of the all-day rooftops.

How much do Chiang Mai rooftop bars cost?

Prices split sharply by tier. A 2026 guide puts cocktails at the hotel rooftops between 150 and 350 baht, with beer and basics at 70 to 100 baht. MAI The Sky Bar charges non-residents an entry ticket redeemable against the bill, reported between 250 and 600 baht. JAI LOY, run as a hostel bar, is the cheapest on this list. HONG’s Sky Bar charges 1,000 baht plus taxes corkage per bottle.

The figures above come from single sources of varying age and should be treated as a guide to the tiers rather than a price list. Happy hour changes the arithmetic more than the tier does. Several of these bars run buy-one-get-one promotions over the sunset window, and YaYee, JAI LOY, ARISE have all advertised them. The window usually runs about two hours from 5.00pm, which is also when the light is best, so the cheapest hour and the best hour are frequently the same hour.

Are Chiang Mai rooftop views free to see anywhere?

Yes. The sixth-floor rooftop plaza at Maya Lifestyle Shopping Center, which the mall calls Nimman Hill, is open to walk onto without buying anything, Several bars and restaurants share that roof.

This is standard knowledge among residents and almost never appears in visitor guides, which have no reason to point readers away from a bar. It works well for anyone travelling with children, anyone avoiding alcohol, and anyone who wants to see the sunset without committing to a minimum spend. Aeroplanes pass low overhead on approach to Chiang Mai International Airport, which is a few kilometres south, and that alone holds attention for a while.

Frequently asked questions

Do Chiang Mai rooftop bars have a dress code?

Smart casual is expected at the hotel bars, meaning MAI The Sky Bar, HONG’s Sky Bar and ARISE. Enforcement is light everywhere. The independent rooftops have no dress code at all.

Which rooftop bar has the best view of Tha Phae Gate?

Copacabana Rooftop Diner looks directly across at Tha Phae Gate from 291 Tha Phae Road. Thapae Grill and The Moat House both look over the old city wall and moat from inside the walls.

Do I need to book a table?

Booking is advisable at MAI The Sky Bar, HONG’s Sky Bar and the Thapae Grill rooftop, particularly on Sunday when the walking street runs. YaYee takes reservations only for arrivals before 7.00pm and accepts walk-ins after that. The Moat House sells out its rooftop for the lantern festivals well in advance.

Which rooftop bar in Chiang Mai has a swimming pool?

ARISE at AMANOR Hotel Chiang Mai is built around a see-through infinity pool. The pool is reserved for hotel guests, and bar customers sit alongside it.

What is the best month for rooftop bars in Chiang Mai?

November to February. The air is clear of smoke, the evenings are cool, and Doi Suthep is visible. Avoid late February to April, when burning season haze removes the view.

Are there rooftop bars in Chiang Mai open during the day?

JAI LOY Cafe & Rooftop and The Moat House both open at 8.00am, and Thapae Grill opens at 11.30am. The rest open in the afternoon or evening.

Is there an entry charge at any Chiang Mai rooftop bar?

MAI The Sky Bar charges non-hotel guests an entry ticket that converts to credit against food and drinks. No other venue on this list charges for entry.

The last word

The height of a bar decides very little. MAI The Sky Bar wins on altitude and HONG’s on polish, and neither of them beats a fifth-floor terrace in Nimman when the air is clean and the mountain is out. Check the air quality first, check the opening time against the sunset, and then pick the room. The view is a seasonal asset in this city and everybody who lives here books around that fact.