A sauna, cold plunge and studio in Hackney, sort of….

Technically, we’re in Shoreditch. But Shoreditch sits inside the London Borough of Hackney, so officially, for all the boring administrative purposes, we’re a sauna, cold plunge and studio in Hackney. We’ll take it.

More usefully, it means we’re properly reachable from across the borough: Dalston, London Fields, Hackney Central, Stoke Newington, Hackney Wick, and everywhere in between. If you’ve been hunting for somewhere in Hackney to sweat hard and shock yourself awake, you’ve found it.

Why Hackney was missing this

Hackney has a gym for every mood and a studio for every discipline. What it didn’t have, until fairly recently, was a serious sauna and cold plunge, the kind of place that sits on half the street corners in Helsinki and Stockholm, and that London has been strangely slow to build.

It’s the right borough for it. People here think hard about how they train, eat, sleep and recover. Heat and cold is the piece that’s usually missing from that list, and it’s the piece we’re here for.

Getting here from around the borough

We’re on 124 Tabernacle Street, a few minutes from Shoreditch High Street Overground and Old Street. From most of Hackney it’s a short ride. Dalston is around 6 minutes on the Overground to Shoreditch High Street and then a short walk, roughly 15 minutes door to door. From Hackney Central the 242 runs direct, or you can take the Overground and change at Hackney Downs. London Fields is walkable in about 25 minutes, or one stop on the train. Hackney Wick is around 20 minutes on the Overground, changing at Stratford or Highbury & Islington. And from Stoke Newington the 149 or 243 goes direct in about 20 minutes.

Cycling in? Bring the bike inside and we’ll store it while you’re in.

What’s actually here

Two saunas and six plunges. The Finnish sauna runs properly hot, with real steam, water on the stones, the deep kind of heat the Nordic countries have spent centuries perfecting. The infrared sauna is gentler and works the body differently, and plenty of people find it easier to settle into for a longer, quieter session.

The six plunges are 3D printed, which is a good deal more sustainable to build, and they come in pairs at 3°C, 6°C and 12°C, so there’s never a wait to get in and you can pick your fight. 3°C is the deep end: short, sharp, unforgettable. 6°C is the everyday classic, cold enough to count and manageable for regulars. 12°C is there partly because emerging research suggests women’s cold exposure response benefits from slightly warmer water, and partly because it’s a sensible first plunge for anyone new to this.

Around them: hot showers, a calm changing area, and a social space that lands somewhere between a café and a clubhouse. We sweated the details on how the place feels, because we wanted somewhere we’d genuinely want to spend time ourselves.

There’s a studio, too, running breathwork, yoga, Pilates and sound sessions for the days you want the slow, quiet side of recovery rather than the shock of the cold, plus a café lounge to stay in afterwards.

The feel of a spa, not the bill

We cap every session at six people. That’s deliberate: no crowds, no waiting on a plunge, no turning into a wet changing room at rush hour. It’s the intimate, considered end of things you’d usually pay spa money for, at something closer to a tenth of the price.

How a session works

Thirty minutes, by design. Long enough for three or four proper rounds of hot and cold, short enough to fit a lunch break or the gap before the day gets going. This isn’t meant to be the thing you clear an evening for. It’s the thing you do often, because consistency is where contrast therapy earns its keep. Three short sessions a week beats one heroic one, every time.

You move between hot and cold a few times, rest in between, then either head off or stick around for a drink and a chat.

Built for the borough

Most of our regulars live within a 20 minute walk or cycle. We run Social Saturdays, collaborations with brands we rate and the kind of crowd worth meeting, and run clubs that start sweaty and finish sorted. It adds up to something that feels less like a facility and more like a local.

So if you’ve been looking for a sauna in Hackney, come and try us. The first visit is the hardest. After that, you’ll be back.

Sauna & Plunge Co., 124 Tabernacle Street, Shoreditch, in the London Borough of Hackney.