When was the last time you were laid out naked in an enclosed space, whipped with hot leaves and then dropped into a tub of freezing water? This may sound like a way of eliciting information from a detainee in breach of the Geneva Convention but it is in fact the most enlivening experience I’ve had in London (before midnight, at any rate).
I discovered Banya No.1 almost a decade ago and have been an enthusiastic regular ever since, forever craving the next opportunity to emerge from the icy water feeling born anew, as if dunked by a secular John the Baptist, had he worked on the banks of a Siberian stream instead of the Jordan River.
Over the years I have spoken of Banya in hushed tones, recommending it to only the closest of friends, not wanting to break the feeling of intimate exclusivity (and as someone whose job involves mining their personal life for inspiration, this has taken some considerable restraint).
There is a paradox here: while Banya feels like a ‘hidden gem’ it has received gushing testimonials from clients including Renee Zellweger, Liv Tyler and Justin Bieber. It is London’s worst kept secret – a luxury spa that encourages the consumption of Staropramen and shots of vodka, where you can happily consume your body weight in pork fat and dumplings, and yet leave a vision of relaxed good health.
The amazing dumplings at Banya No.1
The Hoxton branch (there are also outposts in Richmond and, further afield, Tbilisi; I have visited them all) is located in an unassuming new-build on Micawber Street (a road whose name has the ring of a cutting Glaswegian insult). Descend into the bowels of the building and you’ll find a neat little spa decked out in bare wood and forest green. You’re shown to a booth, which remains yours for the duration of your three hour stay.
The idea is to raise your temperature in the sauna – making sure you don a little felt hat to protect your head from the heat – before drenching yourself under a bucket of cold water and then submersing yourself in a freezing tub.
The first time you’re asked to do this, it feels like torture. The water stings like a thousand knives and your body panics at the sudden shift in temperature. But immediately after you feel incredible, your limbs tingling, your mind clear. It becomes addictive: over the three hours, you repeat the process again and again. As a relative Banya veteran, I now remain in the tub for minutes at a time, feeling my heart-rate slow, the cold water becoming strangely comforting.
Then there is the parenie treatment – the highlight of the visit – which sees you lie on a treatment table in the sauna while the temperature is ramped up (the saunas use superheated, pressurised brick ovens to create the “right kind of steam”).
Next a pair of burly lads take turns to imbue handfuls of oak and birch leaves with hot air by shuggling them at the top of the sauna before whacking you with them (it’s more about the heat than the pressure). The ten minute treatment exists on the threshold between pleasure and pain, a sensory overload that never quite tips over into discomfort. There’s nothing else like it.
The cold buckets at Banya No.1
If you prefer a little privacy, there are new private saunas, complete with cold filtered air pumped below the treatment tables. And for an even more exclusivity, there is a separate spa designed for group hire, meaning you get the entire experience – dining table, spa, treatment rooms, plunge pool – all to yourselves.
Although it’s a Russian spa, my more recent parenie was expertly performed by a Ukrainian-Israeli man. He turned out to be a carpenter with a side hustle in spa treatments, having built the Banya sauna using a special type of wood prized for not expanding and contracting under intense heat, imported – at great expense – from Russia.
During downtime at your booth there’s a menu that would be the envy of many restaurants, featuring decadent slices of herring, excellent dumplings with sour cream, huge piles of shrimp. Order everything.
The walls are decorated with paintings of traditional Russian and East European thermal spas. It’s the kind of place you can imagine industry leaders, politicians and oligarchs coming to thrash out deals (and, to be fair, they probably do), although the clientele ranges from sturdy-looking blokes from the Motherland to giggling young couples on daring early dates. Plus the roster of film stars and musicians and sportspeople who count themselves among the Banya faithful.
So after 10 years, I have broken my habit of keeping Banya to myself. You’re all very welcome: once you go, you’ll see what I mean.
• To book Banya No.1 go to the website here