You could hardly find a more incongruous spot for K-Spa, the spa with treatment rooms and wet spa facilities at the K West Hotel. The chic glass-and-metal building sits amid the tidy white Regency-style houses of West London, just steps down from the roar of buses and the alarmist hurry of Shepherd’s Bush station. This spa is a little retreat from the London life in the best way.
K West has a music vibe. It’s near the storied O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire venue. On Thursdays and Fridays they host live music. The sounds in the spa are less ‘rock’, more ‘relax’. But the facilities maintain a buzz in keeping with its rock ‘n’ roll image.
What’s different about K-Spa
I visited the spa for a friend’s birthday – a day with the girls for pampering and lunch. We each booked our own line-up of treatments and a stint using the spa facilities. (You can buy day passes for the facilities or book treatments. You get access
Every spa has its own vibe. Some are all about tranquillity, some about healing, some about mind-body awareness. My friend the birthday girl Christie said, ‘On first impression, the decor is modern with crisp white walls & warm wood accents and furnishing with lighting just bright enough to make you forget that you have descended beneath ground level.’
K-Spa has fantastic treatments and if I had to sum up the atmosphere in its wet spa it would be something like the most laid-back party you’ve ever attended. Couples wander in and out of the sauna, the steam room, the pool bubbling with underwater jets. I sat in the sauna with two trim, handsome white-haired gentlemen speaking some Scandinavian language and wondered if they were doing business the traditional way (sans trousers). Young couples in the pool and relaxation areas giggled and smiled, looking like they were kicking off a long romantic weekend away. This has one of the most fun and lively atmospheres I’ve ever encountered in a spa. It had just the right blend of relaxation and background buzz.
Special appeal: Coming in to the cold
K Spa also has what is claims is London’s first ‘Snow Paradise’. This room just off the wet spa is filled with snow and ice and chilled to -15ºC. You step in wearing your costume (and flip-flops!) and get the benefits of the traditional Finnish‘ hot-cold Therapy’. I held my breath and popped in (as a Texas girl I usually avoid the cold). A couple and a young guy stood around, looking like guests at an icy cocktail party, but without the low-ball glasses or, er, clothing. Unlike most cocktail parties, I didn’t stay long. Brrrrrr.
Stay in watching clouds of your breath then hop back into the sauna or steam room, rinse off in the cold shower, get back into the warm hydrotherapy pool, then make the circuit again. It’s a unique offering from a compact London spa and imparts the benefits of hot-cold therapy, which includes reduction of inflammation and pain, quicker recovery from injury and boosts to circulation.
The treatments at K-Spa
The real standout treatment of any good spa is one of the best in my opinion: a great massage.
Our group had massages of varying lengths – mine was a half hour, the birthday girl had an hour as part of her Feeling Fabulous package (50-min massage and facial, VIP Works manicure, lunch/dinner with glass of wine and use of wet spa), another had an 50-minute version. They were all fabulous. Often a half hour version leaves me with a sense of it being over before it begins. Here at K-Spa, while I would have loved a longer session, I felt thoroughly kneaded, from scalp to toes.
Christie described her massage as ‘beyond relaxing’. ‘It succeeded in removing all traces of tension and stress. The masseuses repetitive movements exerted just the right amount of pressure and no muscle was neglected. I could have stayed there all day like a cat on a sun-drenched cushion.’ Christie’s facial and manicure were ‘immaculately delivered’ and ‘it was easy to wile away time between treatments in the saunas and jacuzzi.’
Lunch at K-Spa: Could do better
The lunch at the Studio Kitchen restaurant was the one place K-Spa and K West Hotel stumbled. We had a 2 hour slot between our various treatments and appointments to gather, have a glass of prosecco and enjoy lunch. On the day we visited our order was mysteriously delayed while around us several other tables arrived, ordered and were served. They kept telling us that the food was coming but still we waited.
The hold-up? As near as we could tell, it was the question from one of our party whether they could do the burger with gluten-free bread. She would have been happy to choose another dish or just have the patty on its own if the answer had been no, but after hearing from the kitchen that the answer was yes, we waited for 45 minutes for lunch to come. The birthday girl had to go downstairs to request that her post-lunch appointment was pushed back – luckily the nice folks at the spa were able to accommodate her.
The menu was short, which isn’t in and of itself a problem, but it was crying out for simple, light options. There was fish and chips, steak, roasted cod, a beef burger and three salads — a “six lettuce” salad, smoked chicken salad and quinoa salad. These all sounded good but we would have loved a good chicken Caesar salad.
‘They seem to have completely forgot what a spa guest might fancy, but instead have a range of burgers, big sandwiches and chip combos! Light salad options were few and far between,’ Christie said.
As it was, when the food came it was merely OK. I had opted for the spicy chicken burger with pickled cucumber and cabbage slaw. I like the toppings but — strangely — the chicken itself was battered like you would with fish and chips. Why not breaded? Why not simply grilled? A battered chicken breast feels like a refugee from an old-fashioned pub from the ’70s. It felt like somebody in the kitchen didn’t get the memo about the kind of place this is.
The upshot on K-Spa
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Leaving aside the merely adequate lunch, the day at the spa was marvelous. K-Spa is one of the London spas where I would book a massage even if I only had a half hour to spare. It’s also nice to find a spa If I were going with a partner or a group of friends, I would arrange our schedules so we could hop from sauna to steam room to Snow Paradise to sanarium to hydrotherapy pool.
Great for: Groups, couples, parents & teens together (only over 16s are allowed)
The service: The staff at the spa was friendly and accommodating. They had a woman regularly attending the changing rooms, which meant they were impressively clean.
Don’t miss: A massage! Whatever else you book, arrange for one of these, from aromatherapy to Mediterranean candle massage to pre- or post-natal.
Disclosure: I paid for my massage but was provided a complimentary day pass to use the facilities.
K-Spa
K West Hotel
https://www.k-west.co.uk/k-spa
Richmond Way, London W14 0AX
+44 (0)20.8008.6600
This place sounds groovy. You can’t beat a bit of Scandi talk to set the right tone in a sauna!
Absolutely! As they say in the music business: Rock on!