Hard to believe Sarma, the invention of renowned local chefs Ana Sortun (Oleana and Sofra) and Cassie Piuma (as well as Cassie’s husband, Michael, who’s part of the ownership team) has been a hot spot since 2013. Go there on, say, a Tuesday at 5:15 p.m. and the bar (which is the only place to eat) is packed – your name gets added to the wait list, you grab a glass of wine and scroll through emails as you wait for a spot. This happens now with the city still summer-vacation empty and the students yet to land for the upcoming school year; this was true before Covid and before the green line extension that drops folks off right across the street in Gilman Square, when your options were bus, cab or an ankle-breaking bike ride up and over Prospect Hill. Technically Sarma is part of Winter Hill, but feels like a Magoun Square orphan nestled off a quaint, eclectic side street abutted by lofts and artist studios.
The cuisine at Sarma is nouvelle Mediterranean (my take on their take; the name Sarma comes from the Turkish word for wrap, as in a grape leaf and the like) and it’s wildly – and wonderfully – vast and balanced, with a strong vegetarian lean. The menu shifts seasonally and every night. The house cocktails have a Mediterranean slant to them, and the wine list is short but meticulously curated.
On the menu, which is various categories of small plates, staples include the Black Sea cornbread with feta and honey (definitely not your aunt’s cornbread from south of the Mason-Dixon line), the lamb sliders, fava bean pate, lamb loin chops and duck shish-kabob (more on that in a few). For the veggies, the rainbow carrots with tahini, ginger and hot honey are stars; the mushroom kapnista (a salty Aegean cheese) salad with miso and walnuts isn’t a bad runner-up. The avocado muhummara, which comes with burrata and pistachio crisps, is sublime, puréed green goodness. Get some pita or that Black Sea cornbread.
The items that wowed me were the ouzo-fried fish, tender cheeks or fillets of cod or a similar white fish, deep fried in a spicy batter, that come out perfectly hot and moist and flaky. You could taste the fresh tenderness of the fish without being overwhelmed by the batter. Then there are those harissa duck kabobs, tenderloin chunks of the duck on a skewer, flame-broiled juicy and tender in the middle with a crispy layer of reduced fat on the outside and that spicy harissa pepper sauce to add some kick to your quack.
There’s a special (fried chicken sliders or fried fish cheeks, for instance) that is carried around on trays by servers that diners can choose to partake in a la carte, and some intriguing curios on the menu too: octopus ceviche, a cheese dog gyro and khorovat (Armenian barbecue) banh mi. But to get a shot at such mouth-puckering possibilities without a wait, one must be early or book in advance.
Sarma, 249 Pearl St., Winter Hill, Somerville
Tom Meek is a writer living in Cambridge. His reviews, essays, short stories and articles have appeared in the WBUR ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB literary journal. Tom is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and rides his bike everywhere.
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