![sarma somerville sarma somerville](https://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/SkNrFiGvFZo4ySOoy8FDCQ/180s.jpg)
Orbs of spinach falafel sprawl over a magenta bed of yogurt and beet puree, so soothing against the fried garbanzo's crunch. It comes in a circle, dotted with spiced chickpeas and indented in the center to hold a pool of olive oil.
![sarma somerville sarma somerville](https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2930/14142387086_fa250cda36_b.jpg)
Cacik, a classic Turkish dip, blends labneh with spinach, mint, cucumber, and garlic. The lesson: If the choices at Oleana seem overwhelming, just look for yogurt and all will be right. The lemony za'atar merged with the mushrooms and garlic on the pita, intensifying each bite in the same way that herbes de Provence adds fragrant depth to ratatouille. The yogurt gave the cheese shell a tangy new angle. It was, in fact, a dairy rendezvous-a meeting at the intersection of smooth and delicate. Stuffing burrata with yogurt strained to the thickness of cream cheese did sound tempting … But then she went on: "The kitchen hollows it out and fills it with labneh flavored with za'atar and serves it with grilled pita spread with chopped morels and green garlic." Hmm. Let's formally designate the milky-buttery mozzarella as the molten chocolate cake of the 2010s. Our warm-spirited server nearly lost my attention when she began to describe burrata as a special. Is Oleana still relevant 13 years later, in the age of Yotam Ottolenghi's cookbooks and fusion fattoush? I visited both Sortun's flagship as well as Sarma, the new small plates restaurant in Somerville (a couple miles northwest of Boston) where Sortun is a co-owner. Four years later, she opened Oleana in Cambridge, celebrating these sun-dazed flavors and demonstrating how nimbly American ideas can meld with the ingredients of the "Mediterranean" (a Middle Eastern restaurant euphemism ripe for retirement).
![sarma somerville sarma somerville](https://d253b1eioa5z7b.cloudfront.net/blog_article_images/rectangle_12_5_1440_bd9a613a-b1d1-48dc-b524-a6e0e7f25e4b.jpg)
In 1997, Sortun travelled to Turkey where she encountered pomegranate molasses, spice blends as brain-teasing as jigsaw puzzles, and airy pita pulled fresh from the oven. She studied at the famed La Varenne cooking school in France and then moved to Massachusetts, working for a Tunisian-born chef, Moncef Meddab, then running the kitchen at Casablanca restaurant in Harvard Square. The nutty luster of tahini, the wafts of cinnamon and earthy za'atar, vegetable salads lolling in olive oil, spiced lamb in every permutation: Their prominence in our national culinary identity is overdue.Īna Sortun was an early ambassador for these cuisines. It's heartening to find the flavors of Turkey and the Middle East emerging in ambitious, finer dining restaurants across America.