Inside the rise of London's wellness members' clubs

When I had cryotherapy for the first time a decade ago, getting mitted up to stand like a shivering penguin at -100 degrees Celsius was still considered outré. Now, this kind of cold therapy has been popularised, and high-tech longevity treatments are no longer the domain of the loftiest health spas of Mittel Europe.

In fact, they’ve mushroomed all over TikTok alongside zany biohacking trends, and have penetrated high-street gyms, where it’s no longer enough to have reformer Pilates studios and crystal steam rooms.

At top gyms like The Body Lab on Kensington High Street, there’s cryotherapy, red-light therapy, hyperbaric therapy, on-tap Theraguns and hour-long flotation tank treatments for after your regular gym session. With longevity-promising treatments hitting the mainstream, London’s top-end hotel spas and health clinics are upping their game even more.

Post-COVID Britain has seen an exponential surge in private members’ wellness clubs. More than six million Brits are now members of a private health club, and these range in focus from traditional approaches to spiritual wellness (with the likes of Grey Wolfe and The Other House, who favour shamans and energy healers) or biohacking (like HUM2N, the biohacking clinic in Chelsea).

The 2024 crop is longevity all the way, drilling into the confluence of aesthetics and holistic practices, and may fold in plastic surgery, biohacking techniques, specialist osteopathy and natural health for inside-outside peak perfection.

The HVN

HVN opened on Knightsbridge this year with a mantra of “conscious wellbeing.” Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s hippy-dippy by the rainforest sounds and biophilia in the forest-bathing-inspired reception. If this results-driven therapeutic space in London’s most demanding neighbourhood has circadian lighting, birdsong, woodland aromatics, and phytoncides pumped into it, it’s because ecotherapy improves blood pressure and immunity.

HVN was co-founded by female power trio Muriel Zingraff, former Paco Rabanne CEO; medical director Dr Tanya Phillips; and day-spa impresario Jo Harris, who led Urban Retreat. A peach-hued cinema room with a ceramic Glow Pots installation by Martha Freud hosts seminars and master classes on nutrition, osteopathy and resetting the mind, while treatment spaces can be booked for medical aesthetics, acupuncture and functional medicine. The hardware includes hyperbaric chambers, a Hydro2facial machine, the Power Sculpt EMS machine, a Visilia machine for skin analysis, Fotona laser equipment and the UK’s first hydro bed. International travellers and local residents can drop in for botox, fillers, laser facials and NAD shots. For longer stayers, there’s a six-week “body programme” which gets you set for summer. It’s a “cocoon of vitality rooted in medical and scientific expertise,” says Zingraff.

Even their Eastern “heritage” therapies are turbo-tech-charged. Take the £1250 AcuLaserLift, which combines the cosmetic acupuncture expertise of TCM guru Dr John Tsagaris with the Fotona laser resurfacing wizardry of their medical director Dr Tanja Phillip. Tsagaris, who moonlights at holistic medi-haven Palace Merano in Italy, gently wiggles and plexes needles into my face to stimulate collagen formation, deftly prods a buffer of hyaluronic acid under my skin with a tiny needle, and pops in gold ear seeds to drop down my cortisol. A few days later, I go to three parties in one weekend and various people, in accusatory tones, tell me I look “younger”. And I didn’t even have the laser.

Website: the-hvn.com

Galen

Over near Harley Street, Galen proffers “progressive wellbeing”. Greek-founded, and named after the ancient Hellenic physician Claudius Galenus (considered progressive for his healing approach), it opened in 2024 over five pristine art-encrusted floors curated by Athenian designer Sissy Feida, with a 125ft crystal chandelier plunging down the stairwell. Galen ticks off aesthetic and plastic surgery, orthopaedics, complementary and functional medicine and clinical dermatology under one Grade II-listed roof. There’s a proper operating theatre in the basement for mini neck and face lifts, and the treatment list tops 245 therapies, from Omorovicza facials to Morpheus 8 microneedling, via gluthiathone drips and PRP for joint pain. Every room boasts a piece of new-fangled wizardry: a cellulite-smoothing LPG machine, a fraxel laser machine or collagen-stimulating Sofwave machine. Their EBO2 ozone therapy doesn’t just reoxygenate blood, it uses a high-volume blood gas exchange unit to filter it.

This unusual meeting point of science and a holistic approach – nothing new at the Lanserhofs and Clinique La Prairies of this world, but newer to London – is down to co-founders Dr Andreas Androulakakis and his wife Popi Makri. Androulakakis moonlights as the Director of Medical Aesthetic Department at the Hotel Palace Merano in Switzerland, a top medispa that also embraces holistic medicine. Doctor A, as they nickname him, is engaging and a great font of conversation – he’s very jolly on the subject of Hollywood surgery trends, while offering compelling observations about the future of my jawline. A top plastic surgeon with an NHS background, he’s a whizz in facial rejunvenation with fat transfers. Their dermatology lead is the renowned skin cancer and inflammatory skin disease luminary Dr Catherine Borysiewicz, who has successfully treated the likes of Sarah Ferguson. The in-house orthopedic surgeon Mr George Tselentakis is at the cutting-edge of stem-cell therapy and plasma-rich platelet therapy for joints.

As is also common in Europe’s top integrated health spas, functional medicine director Dr Nathan Curran comes from a traditional medical background, but found the conventional approach not expansive enough to address modern disease. He’s a nutrigenomics specialist and offers a cheek swab that examines more than 70 genes to reveal one’s unique nutritional needs.

Hypoxic Training is “better than NAD injections” for renewing the mitochondria, a practitioner tells me as he pops on my respiratory mask. As my energy-generating cell parts are multiplied, I lie on a bed watching a drone fly over the Himalayas, before having a quick snooze. Their MITOVIT machine alternates low oxygen content and oxygen-rich air, while cleverly assessing individual capabilities (I can get to Mont Blanc, but I can’t scale Everest, yet).

Website: thegalenclinic.com

Surrenne

Right across the road from HVN is the new Emory Hotel, Richard Rogers’ architectural swan song grafted onto Maybourne Group sister hotel, The Berkeley. If London’s wellness elite presumed smart spa wellness had peaked with Pillar Wellbeing at Raffles London at the OWO, with its movement and nutrition programme and extreme amenities, they will think again.

The offering takes hotel wellness not just to the next level but into the stratosphere. There’s a wet floor piped with meditative neurosensory soundscapes and circadian rhythm-mimicking lighting, cold plunge areas and snow showers; a Devon Lévesque-curated gym area with hand-selected tech such as Technogym, Woodway and Watson and a Hypervolt recovery station in the recovery zone; and a floor stocked with a medical-grade 2.0 Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber, Evolt 360 body composition scanner and a longevity lounge with a VO2 Max testing and a full suite of diagnostics, microbiome mapping and epigenetic testing.

But it’s not about the “hardware”, says Inge Theron, their creative director of wellbeing, spa and beauty and the inventor of FaceGym. “Do we have the biggest pool, gym and treatment rooms? No, but we don’t care. We have an emporium of deeply considered facilities and experts in choreographing your experience. Spa is the new F&B”, she says, “so we have brought together thought leaders to create Surrenne.”

Their approach is what she calls “forward-gazing approach to human optimisation” – and it leaves no stone unturned and no expense spared. “Some spas might be inspired by the cold water research of Dr Andrew Huberman. But do they have him on their advisory board?” (Nor may they have age-reversal guru David Sinclair, whom The Emory boasts.)

Wellbeing at the Emory is “not just four floors in the basement, but through the line, and in every single touchpoint,” she says. Surrenne will have the first Tracy Anderson centre outside North America; ABCV Kitchen offers the familiar vegan fare that will please any holidaying Stateside Anderson acolytes. There’s also a Rosemary Ferguson-designed micronutrient-centric smoothie and drinks menu at Surrenne Cafe.

Theron seems to be on a one-woman mission to turn high-flying business travellers into biohacking gym bunnies. “Business travellers are shifting the way they choose hotels,” she argues. “They want to fit their health journey into their business travel, and so a dirty Martini and a comfortable bed is not enough anymore. With Surrenne, they know they can pop downstairs to a bonafide health clinic run by thought leaders without having to divert to Harley Street. Your back’s hurting? No problem, we will have the in-house osteo take a look. Need your VO2 max or annual bloods done before meeting your friend for a Cedric Grolet coffee? Easy. This is a real-life approach. We are making changes where our clients are at.” This might also be in their room – Surrenne can dispatch a “fitness trolley” and trainer to any suite.

Surrenne has taken 100 founder members as the cornerstones of a convivial new elite community – the kind that have their own pools and gyms at home, and Peter Attia as their doctor on call. At the moment, it’s “future gazing, AI-utilising, but honouring the great ancient principles of the past” – so there’s a heterogenous rainbow of treatments including U.S. plastic surgeon Dr. Lara Devgan bespoke facials; a UK-first partnership with Stella McCartney skin care; FaceGym; needling, shiatsu, medicinal massage, nutritional programming, radiofrequency ultrasound or EMS facials (not botox or fillers, for now), and body sculpting with infrared. They are also guinea pigs, as their feedback will drive the space in different directions, whether that’s hair transplants or hormone treatments.

These four floors of gold-leaf-accented Remi Tessier-designed wellness are the first flagship for the Surrenne brand, which will ultimately roll out over the Maybourne Group globally. As its home cities include Los Angeles, it’s interesting that London was the first port of call for the brand. “London is ready for a new, convivial sort of wellbeing community,” says Theron. “One that embraces data-driven, evidence-based, science-backed body, mind and soul.” It seems that on the longevity front, London is fast becoming the new LA.

Website: surrenne.com