Featured in Saunologia: Warm Recommendations for Banya No.1 – Hoxton

We’re proud to be featured in Saunologia.fi — Finland’s leading sauna publication — among their top recommendations for sauna experiences in London.

In his review, sauna expert Lassi A. Liikkanen highlights Banya No.1 as a must-visit destination for those seeking an authentic yet elevated wellness experience.

Lassi A. Liikkanen about Banya No. 1 – Hoxton

The next destination takes the sauna traveler from one extreme to the other. If Community Sauna Baths represents a grassroots bring-your-own-bottles type of grill kiosk, then Banya #1 represents a gourmet restaurant with an extensive menu. The price is almost ten times higher.

Open since 2012, Banya No. 1 is located in an inconspicuous setting, behind McDonalds in Hoxton, in the basement of a block of flats. Every day, a puritanical Russian banya warms you up from morning to night. The elegant atmosphere begins right from the basement door. Before this moment, it’s easy to think you’ve come to the wrong place. The premises are impeccably clean and stylishly decorated, inspired by classic Russian banyas.

There are plenty of staff in the banya. They are needed, as the place is very service-oriented. You can’t make the steam yourself, but a sauna attendant takes care of this, scooping one ladle after another into the hot stove. After this, the mixing of the hot air with a large fan, which is vaguely reminiscent of aufguss, begins.

The banya includes two sauna rooms (here, a space resembling a banya sauna), but usually only one of these is open to the public. The other can be rented for private use. However, the sauna is not crowded, as the number of customers per 2-3 hour reservation is limited and there are no queues. The atmosphere is very different in the Community Bath.

You can just come to the banya to admire the facilities, sit on the benches and try the cold baths. However, most customers choose additional services, of which Parenie is the most common and is included in the standard entrance fee of £95 (€110; October 2025). It includes a final session in the sauna room and a guided cooling down of the customer afterwards. It can also be warmly recommended. The service is very professional and efficient. After the treatment, you are guaranteed to feel like you are reborn and the heat stress is not overwhelming for a Finnish sauna tourist.

There are many other services available, massages, masks and so on. These come at an additional cost to the basic package that includes the sauna. The restaurant services are also suitable for the destination and food and drinks can be ordered during the sauna shift when it feels best.

In addition to separate sauna times for men and women, there are plenty of shared times for both sexes, where wearing a swimsuit is mandatory. Dressing up during one-gender sessions is optional.

Magically light sauna and super hot steam

During my visit, I had the pleasure of interviewing the owner of the banya, Andrei Fomin. He told me about the history of this banya and the global conquest of the Banya No.1 operation, which has grown into a chain. In addition to two locations in London, Banya No.1 operates in Paris and Georgia , and later also in Sardinia.

The banya has clearly become a success story in its own bathing culture, even though it did not turn out to be London’s first banya. Namely, the first modern Russian-style baths were established in London at the end of the 19th century to warm up Jews fleeing persecution.

Andrei has a very precise technical view of what makes a banya a banya. Compared to the previous explanations I’ve heard, this time I even found a relatively unambiguous definition of what distinguishes a banya from a sauna. The secret is primarily in the stove, secondarily in the ventilation.

The goal of a Russian banya is to produce a magical “light steam”, which, according to Andrei, can only be created with sauna stones that are over 500 degrees. Or maybe we can forget about the stones, because such a sauna is likely to be loaded with stainless steel or cast iron to store heat. In Hoxton, there is a ton of metal inside the sauna.

In the banya, the steel plates are heated by a special electrical system that keeps the heat of the stoves at over 700 degrees around the clock. According to Andrei, the electricity consumption is still moderate and only a third of what a stove usually used in a Finnish-style sauna would consume. Apparently, this is also largely due to the banya’s special “ventilation”. The exact structure of the stove is not public information, but this article by Furnace Art Engineering reveals how the masonry structure of a similar stove is made and what kind of irons are inside it.

In addition to the temperature, Andrei explained that the super-hot steam in the banya is based on the pressure created by the core of the heater. I didn’t digest this myself, but it will be given below. Instead, I completely believed in the ventilation solution implemented in the banya, i.e. the lack of constant ventilation.

In a banya, the creation and handling of the sauna is everything, so all the moisture must remain strictly inside the walls of the room until the door (or window) is opened. It goes without saying that aggressive sauna bathing, however, leads to natural ventilation due to the piston effect, but this does not harm the sauna. Andrei also says that in a banya, the magic number 120 rule is aimed at, i.e., that for example, a 60-degree sauna would have 60% relative humidity.

Warm recommendation for the banya

I was the first to get into the beer sauna at Hoxton Banja. I stopped taking the sauna after a couple of hours, when the 2.5 hour reservation was full. Since I had talked to Andrei for a long time with my group, I was left wanting to go back to the Banja again. Definitely the best Banja I have managed to find in the last five years, west of the Iron Curtain. However, the price is tempting.

So in London, even in winter, you don’t just have to curse the bad weather, you can also get into the atmosphere of a Finnish sauna at Community Sauna locations for a small fee. If you want to pamper yourself or a friend, regardless of gender, you can head to Banya No.1.

Written by Lassi A Liikkanen

Published on October 17, 2025 on Saunologia

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