SAN ANTONIO– The only full-service hotel south of downtown San Antonio – the Embassy Suites Hotel & Spa at Brooks – recently debuted some of its best amenities, opening its Nineteen17 Restaurant and Puresólspa. A full-service restaurant, Nineteen17 offers savory and delicious meals while Puresólspa features San Antonio’s only salt cave – made up of 22 tons of rock salt imported from Poland.
The Nineteen17 restaurant concept is centered on its unique kitchen equipment – including a rotisserie and a pizza oven – which are visible to patrons through the behind-the-scenes-style open kitchen. To create its custom menu, Nineteen17 has partnered with local vendors, like Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard in Elmendorf, Texas who provides all of the restaurants olives and oils. The concept also relies on locally-sourced ingredients – including herbs and spices grown in the Nineteen17 garden at Embassy Suites. The restaurant also has its own bee hives on site, sourcing honey for use in its dishes, cocktails and dressings. Even the Nineteen17 bar keeps it local, creating cocktail menus and sourcing its on-tap beers from local vendors. The bar currently features a cold brew coffee tap as part of its partnership with Blue Star Brewery.
Nineteen17’s head chef, Rachael Potts, has been with the Phoenix Hospitality Group (PHG) – a San Antonio-based and family-owned company – for six years. Potts oversees food and beverage programs at various PHG properties across the state. While most hotels have standardized menus, Embassy Suites gave Potts creative freedom to contrive the Nineteen17 menu from scratch.
The restaurant fills a culinary niche for San Antonio, offering regionally-influenced dishes from gourmet comfort foods to unique spins on local favorites, like empanadas and street tacos. Nineteen17’s empanadas are made with a red pepper pesto sauce, with red peppers straight from the restaurant’s garden, while the street tacos are stuffed with prime rib for a juicier experience than the more commonly used carne asada. The menu also features an ancho braised short rib, smoked in-house with rehydrated ancho peppers. Because Nineteen17 uses seasonal ingredients, rotating in featured menu items throughout the year, you can expect for the dishes to be as fresh as the home-grown vegetables.
Embassy Suites also offers visitors and locals alike the opportunity to relax and unwind at the newest location of Puresólspa, the only full-service spa in the region. Puresólspa takes its inspiration and techniques from some of the most advances spas in Europe, with its concept centered on the healing properties of salt. Spa owner Beata Huzarska Hatley pioneered the concept in the area, opening her first Puresólspa location in Boerne in 2013. Originally from Poland, Hatley’s family was very involved in the mining industry during her upbringing, as her father designed and built coal mines for a living. In 1964, Hatley’s father helped to create the world’s first underground health resort in the Wieliczka Salt Mine, located just down the street from the family’s home, sparking Hately’s interest in health and wellness, specifically related to the benefits of alkaline environments within the salt mines.
Puresólspa at Brooks features a salt cave comprised of 22 tons of salt – imported directly from Poland. The salt cave features two graduation towers that look like relaxing water features, and help to charge the air. The large quantity of salt creates a unique climate within the cave – rich in ions, minerals and micro-elementary particles like sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, among others – which has been known to alleviate allergy and asthma symptoms. Among a myriad of traditional spa services – including massages and facial treatments, Puresólspa offers halotherapy sessions where spa guests spend time relaxing in the salt cave, breathing in the saturated air to increase the supply of key minerals and elements in the body. Puresólspa also features a vichy shower, which helps to rejuvenate the body and soul through rain therapy.
In addition to the salt cave, rock salt is an integral part of the Puresólspa experience and can be found in each of the treatment rooms, making up beverage stations located throughout the spa, and infused into Puresólspa’s signature line of body products. Each Puresólspa treatment incorporates salt and its beneficial properties, making for an experience that is both relaxing and rejuvenating.
With its fantastic amenities, the Embassy Suites Hotel & Spa at Brooks will feel like a vacation, even for those who live in the area. The hotel recently launched an exclusive rewards program – the 7610 Club – that caters to locals who live, work, learn or play at Brooks. Through the 7610 Club, members are rewarded for dollars spent at Puresólspa and the Nineteen17 Restaurant and bar and earn exclusive loyalty benefits.
For more information about Nineteen17 or Puresólspa, visit livebrooks.com/stay.
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Media Contact:
Connie Gonzalez 210-878-9336
