A tasting experience. A fancy 5-course meal. A moment to pause and focus on the beauty of a radish or the lushness of a pile of whipped brown butter as I spread it on a slice of housemade peasant bread. It’s hard to put Take Root into words, but suffice to say, it’s delicious.
The gist is that in the back of a cozy space on a quiet street in Carroll Gardens, Anna Hieronimus teaches yoga. Meanwhile, her fiancée, Chef Elise Kornack (formerly of The Spotted Pig and Aquavit), cooks up gorgeous meals up front. They’re calling it a “noshery and yoga room,” but don’t let that convince you that the food is at all the usual yogi fare. I can assure you, it’s not raw or served in smoothie form.
The night I dined at Take Root, I loved every course and ate every last speck of food, but one dish in particular keeps turning in my mind. About halfway through our meal, Anna (a yoga instructor AND skilled waitress it seems) delivered a bowl of black garlic agnolotti (a sort of fancier ravioli) stuffed with sweet peas and accompanied by raw asparagus, sweet peas and garlic scapes. Seconds later Elise poured a rich parmesan leek broth over the pasta, filling the tiny room with the most heavenly scent. You could practically feel the umami-ness soaking into your pores.
Beyond the incredible peacefulness of the space (delicate lighting, quiet music) and the decadence of the food, our meal was truly rejuvenating. No, I did not do downward dog. No, I did not wear stretchy pants. But something about the way Anna and Elise presented the meal, with love at every step, was refreshing. At every course Elise stepped out of the kitchen to describe what we were being served and answer my endless questions (why do you love cannellini beans? where did you find lumpfish caviar?). And just as often, Anna popped in the kitchen to check how things were going. The whole thing was so sweet and beautiful, you really should try it yourself. Check out their website here. Tasting menus Thursday through Saturday nights only.
