The geographic range for Will Gilson and the Cambridge Street Hospitality Group may be limited to clusters in Inman Square (Puritan & Co. and the Puritan Oyster Bar) and Cambridge Crossing (Cafe Beatrice, The Lexington and Geppetto), but their range of cuisine – seafood, nouvelle, fine Italian and more – has been wide. With the newly opened Amba, Mediterranean fare has been added; the name refers to a condiment used in Israeli, Turkish and Iraqi cuisine. There’s an “Amba sauce” on the menu. The new space, at First Street and Spring Street at the First Street Market, is a cafe-style eatery serving breakfast and lunch, making for a perfect working lunch spot or a chill study sit-down. There are options for take-home dinners too.
Amba serves up whole rotisserie chickens to go along with some delicious savory side options: schmaltz-roasted potatoes, spiced cauliflower with pomegranate, a farmer’s farro and harissa-roasted carrots (a menu secret weapon) among them. There are packed pitas with chicken shawarma or chicken salad, the latter of which is a hearty delight light of moist, shredded meat light on the mayo and accented with fresh dill and pickled red onion. It’s the basics, performed exceptionally well.
The burger at Amba also comes in a pita in your choice of lamb or beef, both with tomato jam, pickled veggies and harissa aioli. (“Jam” is a bit of a misnomer, as it’s more of a chunky, juicy relish or sweet salsa with a pickled zing and sweet ripe diced tomato that’s sublime.) I had the lamb version, which is more of a kofta or sausage than a traditional meat patty, and got the aioli on the side, which was a smart call: I hardly used it, because that jam was so special.
The bakery counter at Amba boasts cheese borekas, muffins and sugar-dusted popovers, among other sweets and savories. Latkes and mezes (hummus, green feta dip, muhammara and eggplant escalivada) are on the menu, as are arayes – the Lebanese flatbreads that are basically lamb burgers done smashburger style, with the pita wrap grilled until crispy and served with Greek yogurt instead of an aioli. There’s a cucumber-tomato-feta salad over a bed of farro, and a Persian-rice Street Cart Bowl to which you can add falafel, shawarma or lamb kofta. (An option for the salads too.) Other neat things on the menu – that, as you can guess, go into a pita – are the sabich of fried eggplant and a hard-boiled egg and the “pita mac,” nodding to a Big Mac with two beef patties and, as you can guess, a “special sauce.”
The First Street Market is an open space for farmers and local food venders to sell produce and victuals. You can think of it like the Boston Public Market except in a more flexible environment; there’s a small bar to boot. Its opening coincides with that of the CanalSide Food Hall across the street, taking over space that was the CambridgeSide Galleria’s food court and boasting its own bar space. It’s a destination makeover that should give diners plenty of choices.
Amba, 57-59 First St., East Cambridge
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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