“For something entirely different, try Hoxton’s Banya No.1.”
That’s what their own website says, and honestly, we’ll give them that – it’s definitely different. The place promises an authentic Russian spa experience, and yes, we’d also heard the rumours about being beaten with bunches of leaves.
Tucked away off a side street near Old Street, it sits in the basement of a new-build block. They even share the same entrance, so you get the odd thrill of wondering whether you’re heading for a spa treatment or someone’s Amazon delivery.
Once you’re downstairs, the walls are plastered with celebrity photos, quotes and snapshots. Kate Moss apparently floated out feeling fantastic after a visit with her aristocratic beau, while Renée Zellweger, like us, seemed stunned that this even exists on Micawber Street. And if that doesn’t set the tone, wait until you hear Justin Bieber’s favourite order: 150g of garlic bread sticks from the on-site restaurant. Yes, there’s a restaurant, a kind of pub-cum-working-mens-club lounge, where you rest in between sessions, serving all kinds of Russian specialities: vodka, beer, dumplings, cheese breads, pickles…different indeed.
Inside the spa, things heat up, literally. The sauna sits at around 70 degrees. Banyas are designed to make you sweat properly; the mix of dry heat and steam pushes your body into a deep sweat, which helps flush out waste products. It’s tended by a banya master: essentially a very committed, very topless man who ladles water into a brick furnace until your face starts stinging. After that, you move on to the treatment rooms. We booked the Silver Package: Parenie, a scrub and a mud mask.
Parenie is a kind of leafy choreography meets steam-induced delirium – rhythmic waving and gentle tapping with hot, fragrant branches inside a superheated room, followed by a bracing cold-water plunge. It’s far softer than the horror stories suggest, just much hotter. And for all the theatrics, it does have benefits: the intense heat boosts circulation, the branches release essential oils and the cold plunge kicks your system awake.
The next step in the Silver Package is a full scrub-down. And when we say scrubbed, we mean squeaky. Then came the mud mask, which stung like an absolute mo-fo but left our skin feeling like freshly kneaded Play-Doh for a good couple of days afterwards.
It’s a crazy place. There’s genuinely nowhere else in London quite like it. No wonder Miss Moss floated out feeling fabulous.
Key Information
Address | 17 Micawber St, London N1 7TB
For more information | gobanya.co.uk
