We’re used to business meetings happening over breakfast, workouts doubling as networking opportunities, and a game of padel becoming a chance to discuss a deal.
So perhaps it was only a matter of time before the bathhouse became the latest place to hold a quasi-board meeting.
Bathhouses have been part of cultures around the world for centuries, from Japanese sentos and jjimjilbangs to Turkish hammams and Finnish saunas. What is new is New York’s glossy reinterpretation of the ritual, giving communal bathing the kind of design, service, and social cachet usually reserved for its hotels, restaurants, and private clubs.
The new generation bears little resemblance to the utilitarian shvitz. Instead, these are meticulously designed spaces where saunas, cold plunges, thermal pools, and treatments come in low lighting, striking architecture, and, increasingly, a distinctly social atmosphere.
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The appeal is partly physiological, of course. Heat, cold, and contrast therapies have become fixtures of the modern wellness repertoire. But there is something else going on here. A bathhouse is one of the few places in New York where there is very little to optimize. You take off the watch, put away the phone, and, for a while at least, stop being useful.
That may not sound like an obvious form of luxury – particularly if your idea of relaxation does not traditionally involve sitting nearly naked beside an unknown hedge-fund manager. But slowing down is all part of the appeal.
The best luxury bathhouses and saunas in New York
For the full-scale experience, QC Spa NY on Governors Island combines several saunas and steam rooms with outdoor pools, hydrotherapy, and relaxation rooms, all with the Manhattan skyline as backdrop.
Bathhouse Flatiron is the more central option, making it perfect to sample the multiple thermal pools, two large saunas, steam room, and treatment rooms after a particularly stressful meeting with a client. Designed by the Rockweel Group, it features traditional aufguss rituals – during which water and essential oils are used to circulate heat through the sauna – add a more theatrical element.
For something intimate, there’s AIRE Ancient Baths Upper East Side, which limits capacity to just 15 guests at a time inside the former MoMA warehouse, where it has thermal pools, treatment rooms, and a suspended flotarium.
And for those who have embraced the social side of the trend, Othership Flatiron has a 90-person performance sauna hosting guided sessions with music and breathwork, alongside more free-form sessions for those who would rather simply sweat, plunge, and chat.
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What to know before you go
Americans new to European-style sauna and bathhouse culture may find that the rules are rather less complicated than expected. Priit Kallas, CEO of Estonian sauna maker Iglucraft (which has made bespoke saunas for the likes of the Beckhams and the Ramseys), points out that traditions vary considerably between countries – and even between individual venues. Some saunas require swimwear; others consider nudity entirely normal, particularly in single-sex spaces. “Check before you go, and follow the lead of the people around you,” he says. “That’s the rule, really.”
The same applies to conversation. Contrary to the idea of the sauna as a temple of enforced silence, Kallas says that in Estonia it has traditionally been a place where people talk, and often about subjects they might not discuss elsewhere. The trick is keeping the volume down out of consideration for everyone else.
There are a few practical rules worth knowing, though. Use a towel to sit on (venues will provide this) and, depending on the setting, another to cover yourself. Leave your phone outside – “no cameras, no performing for anyone,” advises Kallas.
Food and alcohol should stay outside, and there is no prize for enduring the highest temperature for the longest period. Even the more unfamiliar rituals, such as the Finnish and Estonian practice of whisking – gently tapping the skin with water-soaked bundles of birch or juniper – Kallas says are best approached with curiosity rather than alarm.
Related article: The Secret to Great Finnish Whisky? It Starts in a Sauna
Most importantly, he says, sauna etiquette ultimately comes down to respecting the space, the people in it, and the tradition behind it. Which is useful advice whether you’re in an Estonian bathhouse or a particularly expensive sauna in Manhattan.
