Once you Banya, you never go back
Set inside a Grade II-listed former bank opposite Buckingham Palace, with a discreet entrance, The Bath House – Banya London combines old-building grandeur and oak-lined heat with enough polish to feel more Belgravia than brutalist sweatbox. It’s a posh banya, basically, and London doesn’t have loads of those.
The whole thing revolves around the hot-cold-hit-repeat rhythm. You sweat it out in the banya, plunge into icy water, then head to your table in the restaurant for Eastern European fare, from plates of pickles to bowls of dumplings, alongside healthy house-made juices or ice-cold shots of voddy. The choice is yours. The social side of the restaurant is one of the real USPs of a banya – it’s somewhere to hang out between treatments and make a proper afternoon of it.
The signature treatment here is parenie, where a banshik works with bundles of soaked oak, birch and eucalyptus leaves to push heat and fragrant steam across your body in a way that’s part massage, part ritual. It sounds intense because it is, but that’s also the point.
Depending on the package you book, you can add on an extra treatment too, choosing from things like a massage, scrub, wrap or soapy massage. I went for the salt scrub, which is definitely on the more vigorous end of the scale but leaves you feeling absurdly smooth afterwards. If you want something a little less savage, they also do a coffee scrub. And honestly, there’s something very satisfying about following all that heat and leaf-whacking with a proper soapy massage or a classic rubdown.
If you’re planning a birthday, there’s a private banya you can hire for parties and special occasions, with its own sauna, plunge pool, treatment room and lounge, so if you want your spa day to feel a bit more exclusive, they’ve got that covered too.
Come for the heat therapy, stay for the food, and leave wondering why every spa doesn’t involve beating around (with) the bush and carb loading in between.
Key Information
Address | 1 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1W 0BD
For more information | banyalondon.co.uk
