Sara's Kitchen — Restaurant in City of Saratoga Springs

Got it — I’ll keep “Sara” lowercase as you requested, include the details about your daughter’s falafel and shawarma wrap,

On a recent mother–daughter trip to Lake George, we decided to stop in Saratoga Springs for a nice dinner on our way home. After looking at several options, we landed on Mediterranean cuisine and chose Sara’s Kitchen, and we are so glad we did!

We arrived right as the doors opened at 5:30, joining a small group of people already waiting, including guests who clearly knew the place well. We were greeted promptly by Sara herself, whose warmth and genuine hospitality made us feel like old friends. James also welcomed us and described the mix of cultural influences from Lebanese and Egyptian and beyond, woven into each homemade dish.

We started with the Mezze Plate, which came with five dips and freshly baked pita bread. The pita arrived hot, puffed up, soft, and pillowy, pure comfort. Sara personally delivered the platter and walked us through each dip, sharing small stories along the way: how the hummus is made from dried chickpeas soaked overnight, how her red pepper hummus is topped with pomegranate-infused molasses, and how the smoked eggplant baba ghanoush achieves its perfectly balanced flavor. She even mentioned that the herbs in the hummus came from a friend’s spice company-Saratoga Spices. Every bite was rich, fresh, and layered with flavor, we could have stopped there and been completely satisfied.

For my entrée, I chose the Shish Kebab, marinated chicken served with fragrant rice, more fresh pita, and a yogurt-based dip with olive oil and spices. The chicken was incredibly tender, and pairing it with the yogurt dip and a forkful of cinnamon-and-clove-scented rice was nothing short of heavenly. The flavors were vibrant, comforting, and deeply satisfying.

My daughter ordered the Falafel appetizer, which was beautifully presented with large, hand-scooped falafel resting on a base of creamy tahini sauce. Pickled radishes added a bright, tangy pop of color and flavor to the plate. She also tried the Shawarma Wrap, which was so generously filled that she could only eat half. The wrap was bursting with layers of flavor, from the savory meat to the surprise addition of French fries tucked right inside.

What stood out just as much as the food was Sara’s generosity. She offered us some of her pomegranate molasses to take home, even though she doesn’t sell it, and I ended up purchasing her Shawarma spice blend and yogurt dip seasoning so I could try recreating the flavors in my own kitchen.

If you haven’t been to Sara’s Kitchen yet, you are truly missing out. Sara makes every guest feel like a regular, and the food is unforgettable. Next time I’m in the area, I’ll be back without question, especially for that red...

After reading so many great reviews of this place, we were excited to try the food out. I will preface this review by saying a few things 1) my dad and I are from a larger city and love trying new restaurants of all different cuisines, so perhaps our expectations are a bit higher than average 2) we ordered take-out versus dining in and 3) I’m vegetarian, so we only ordered vegetarian dishes; however, we didn’t love any of the dishes we ordered. We ordered the veggie sambosak, fattouch salad, falafel shawarma, falafel rice plate. We felt like there wasn’t enough filling in the sambosak (obviously personal preference, but the ratio felt off to us), and the fattouch salad dressing wasn’t super flavorful (neither of us detected pomegranate). As for the falafel dishes, our main complaint is that the falafels we got were rock hard. I’m not sure how they were actually made, but it felt like they had been frozen and thrown in a deep fryer to both cook and de-thaw at the same time, leading to an exterior that was hard to cut or bite into. The shawarma and rice plate also tasted very similar. I do understand that the establishment is still small and has a limited menu though, and it’s hard to create variety among similar dishes with limited ingredients without it getting too expensive, so this is more of just a note for anyone looking at getting those two dishes in one sitting. Our last qualm was the portion size for the amount of money we paid. I think this may have had to do with the fact that we got our food to-go, but we can usually order an appetizer and 3 entrees for around the same (maybe a bit more) money to-go and have the leftovers last us 3-5 more meals (2-3 each), but we only have enough left for one person after both of us split the dishes up. Based on other reviews, I think this restaurant has promise, but at least the vegetarian food needs a bit of tweaking still. I’ll be keeping tabs on the restaurant and perhaps we’ll try again in a year or two, but it hasn’t made it to our...

Middle Eastern food would be a perfect addition to Broadway. This was our second visit to Sara’s Kitchen in the last six weeks.

The first time we visited, the one person at the counter taking food orders was so slow, that the queue was eight deep and one person waiting for a delivery order. After 10 minutes of waiting, the line wasn’t moving, so we gave up and left.

Last night, we actually called, spoke with someone and made a reservation for 5:30pm. We arrived at 5:30 sharp and found a handwritten sign on the door “Open at 6:00.” We waited until 6:00 and finally knocked on the door … they unlocked the door and let us in. There was immediately a queue of 10 and we were #3-6 in the queue. We quickly ordered two appetizers, two shawarma wraps and two shawarmas with rice. We waited 30 minutes for the first of four of the mains to be delivered. We were then told “there is no rice” and no stuffed grape leaves appetizer - so we now were waiting on three shawarma wraps and two appetizers. Apparently, the appetizers took longer because the oven was occupied with a catering order. At one hour, we received two more shawarma wraps and, a bit later, the two appetizers. At one hour and twenty minutes, we received the final shawarma wrap.

The food was absolutely delicious.

I’ll be thrilled to update this review if this restaurant can be reliably good. Saratoga Springs sure could use a restaurant like this … but this...