Antalee featured in NorthShore Magazine

Antalee Wellness Center & Spa

By Sherry Thomas

1834-36 Glenview Road, Glenview,

847/486-1130www.antalee.com

Spa. Focus on the spa. That's what we had to keep telling ourselves after visiting Aneta Arutcheva's off-the-beaten-path Antalee Wellness Center & Spa to research this story. Certainly there's plenty to focus on there. Between Antalee's one-of-a-kind "With the Season" facial (facial treatments and a foot massage made with the freshest organic fruits and vegetables of the season!) and the Reiki Raindrop massage (balancing universal energy and cleansing chakras with 11 essential oils), this Russian native and former Morgan Stanley stockbroker has created a day spa unlike any other on the North Shore.

Yet it's hard to focus on the hidden wonders of such things when the food you have in front of you is so fresh, so good, you almost want to save this story for the Taste section. The three-table Antalee Café has become so popular in this downtown Glenview neighborhood that people have been stopping up (Antalee is located on the second floor of an office/retail complex) just for the food, cooked by none other than Arutcheva's father, Garry

Our tasting menu included vegetarian, macrobiotic specialties as well as one of Garry's signature turkey patties (fresh-ground turkey seasoned with fresh cilantro and onion and cooked slowly in a Zepter pan). For those who like to taste their way through travel experiences, this spa-cation might end up feeling like a trip to some exotic, hidden, faraway land.

Antalee also features a small boho jewelry and accessory boutique in the lobby and works by local artists for sale on the walls. Perhaps the best way to describe it is the most obvious: It's different, in the best possible way.

You can work out the kinks in your back and then work out your chakras. You can move from a consultation on laser skin treatments to an intuitive reading or energy healing session. But there is one thing on the Antalee menu that is sure to be popular in these uncertain times: a class on how to use natural energy to attract success and prosperity. We'll see you there.