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CARROLL GARDENS: Fine dining and yoga together? It’s no stretch

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Note: More media content is available for this story at BrooklynDaily.com.

By Natalie Musumeci

Brooklyn Daily

Feeding your body and your soul in Carroll Gardens couldn’t get much easier.

A sit-down eatery and yoga studio dubbed Take Root dishes out fine farmer’s market-driven cuisine alongside an array of stretching and meditation workshops for children and adults in its homey Sackett Street space.

Take Root owners and fiancées Elise Kornack and Anna Hieronimus say they simply combined their passions to create the unique establishment, which features a small “noshery” at the front and a curtain-divided yoga room big enough for just seven students in the back.

“Anna is a yoga instructor and I’m a chef so it kind of really began when we met,” said Kornack, a former sous-chef at Manhattan’s renowned Aquavit and previous winner of Food Network’s cooking competition show “Chopped.”

“The combination of yoga or wellness and food just seemed natural to both of us,” said the maestro cook who lives with Hieronimus nearby on Henry Street. “We feel that there is a lack of places that have representation of both things that are good for your body and are also just fun to do.”

Meal times and yoga classes don’t coincide right now, though patrons could stick around for a few minutes after a Saturday morning stretching session to catch brunch.

Instructors offer yoga classes in different styles throughout the week, including one taught by Hieronimus, who helps kids as young as two pick up the practice.

The intimate eatery is only open for Saturday brunch and dinner from Tuesday to Thursday — where diners can find a place at the 10-seat communal table or three bar stools and peruse a menu that changes daily based on seasonal ingredients and Kornack’s inspiration.

“Part of the reason why we have so few seats is so that we can change the menu often so that we can offer each person a really unique experience that is curated by just the two of us,” said Hieronimus, who is also the sole hostess and server. “It’s like you’re in someone’s home. It doesn’t feel like you’re walking into a big industrial Brooklyn restaurant.”

Before opening Take Root in January, the couple hosted small for-profit dinner parties in the backyard garden of their former Prospect Heights home, where Hieronimus also taught private yoga lessons out of the second bedroom.

Those dinner soirees would later evolve into Take Root’s Friday and Saturday night reservation-only tasting menus.

Diners who attend the $85-per-person, reservation-only “Rooted” meal can enjoy a five-course feast with ever-changing offerings that may include smoked duck breast, goat’s milk tortellini with red beets, foie gras and sage, and white bean chowder with mussels.

“Every single time people here make friends with the person next to them just over a plate of food,” said Kornack, who added that Take Root aims to do just that. “We wanted to kind of instill a sense of community around both the yoga and the food.”

There are no high-end cocktails on the menu at this yoga-restaurant — unlike the booze-saturated Bushwick yoga studio and bar Cobra Club — but microbrews and wine are available at dinner.

Take Root [187 Sackett St. between Hicks and Henry streets in Carroll Gardens, (347) 227–7116, www.take-root.com].

Reach reporter Natalie Musumeci at nmusumeci@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505. Follow her at twitter.com/souleddout.

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