Sarma Restaurant — Restaurant in Somerville

I have mixed feelings, to be honest. This place is a 3-3.25 on my scale for an elevated dining experience. We walked in with much higher expectations riding on the hype and word-of-mouth buzz that's built up around Sarma. We felt like we had to be careful about what dishes we ordered, and that's not what we're looking for at this price point. I shouldn't have to curate my own experience by cherry picking dishes that won't be meh, for $100 per person. I'd try it again though.

Both of our non-alcoholic drinks were pretty good.

Veggie plates: Asparagus - hazelnuts were a nice textural change, and so was the fruitiness of the kumquat, but the chili crisp added a bit too much oil to the already creamy tarator. The lemony tarator, kimchi, kumquats tripled the tartness. We still liked this quite a bit among the veggie plates.

Batatas Harra, absolute snooze fest. Granted, the potatoes were buttery and well-cooked, but they needed some salt as basic flavoring. The accompaniments were a little too tart for the dish and none of the flavors had permeated the potatoes. The potato pieces were also too big to pick up flavor.

The tomato focaccia started off with a good bread base. The telltale chewiness of a good focaccia was there, but I think it was toasted or charred in oil. While it gave the bread some crunch, it made it oily, and the charred bits offered up bitterness instead of a smoky perfume. The babaghanoush topping was actually quite tasty, but too tangy. It overtook all other flavors and made the dish unbalanced.

Mushroom manti - skip this one and you'll thank me later. The dumplings were tiny, dense, and some of them weren't fully cooked through at the base, where they're knotted or closed off. The truffle flavor was overpowering instead of intriguing. Some parts of the yoghurt, shiitake, herb blend the dumplings sat on had bursts of brilliance but it overall just left me confused. The green peas don't even make sense and don't fit the flavor profile. Maybe charred snap peas would have been better? The dish just had a funny taste overall.

Meat dishes: Ooof! Okay I finally get to talk about the dishes we liked. The duck confit was lovely. The duck was soft and fall-apart tender. The nduja coated skin and fat was creamy. The rice with coconut chips, beans, and nuts were coated in a lovely sauce. The pineapple had a really intriguing note of some spice that it had been marinated in before being brûléed. The sweet spiciness of the pineapple was a lovely complement to the richness of the duck.

The lamb kofte sliders were simple but so good! The kofte themselves were beautifully seasoned. The yoghurt and tomato butter added the right amount of creaminess while providing a light and bright counterpoint to the stronger flavors of the lamb. The sumac onions and pickles were a bright note that melded with the crunchy interior of the bread to make them a lovely mouthful with each bite.

Didn't try dessert.

Atmosphere and service: Good lighting, I like being able to see my food. The stained glass lamps and decor are charming. Depending on where you're sitting, the orange bulbs over the common area are a bit painful on the eye. Soft music and I could hear my partner well. The staff were super friendly and kind. A lovely lady called Sophie made sure our table stopped rocking within 30 seconds of noticing it was uneven. They checked in often and took away the empty plates as we got done. They were courteous and helpful with boxes, the check, etc.

One note though, we ended up dropping a bit of food on the table (because serving the focaccia balanced on their side, on a terribly narrow plate, with wet, saucy toppings is clearly smart plating). When the lady stopped by to help us mop up that tiny mess, she decided to clean the entire table instead of just one spot. I get why but she swiped some crumbs of that mess onto my lap. It was not too sticky or tacky, but it did leave a nice oily stain on my nice swishy pants which I'm not happy about. Luckily, I was going home right after so it didn't bum me out as much as...

MAR. 2024 UPDATE This review is for the Sarma x The Grateful Bagel breakfast collaboration on 2024/03/02. The overall experience was a 3/5 for me, but since this was a one-time event, I am keeping the 5/5 rating for the dine-in experience.

Pre-orders were supposed to go live at midnight, but Sarma had an issue with Toast that resulted in people not being able to place their orders until 12:15 AM. Once ordering was available, everything sold out within a minute. This resulted in a lot of tired, angry people. Luckily, I was constantly refreshing the page and was able to place my order. Although technical difficulties are expected: Sarma should have posted a status immediately to let people know that they were working with Toast to resolve the issue. A message was eventually posted but after 10 minutes of radio silence. The link should have been shared (with ordering disabled) beforehand so that people could read the description for each item (only the menu item names had been shared) and to prevent all of the questions asking for the link.

Now for the food: Biscuit Spanikopita ($12): This was my favorite of the things I ordered. The spinach and feta filling was creamy and savory but very thick, so I could only eat half. The biscuit was buttery and held up well. Egg and Cheese Brik ($10): Didn't like this. The outermost layer was flaky and flavorful, but the rest of the pastry had a tough, stale texture. The egg was runny but nothing special. I liked the hummus that was provided. Sesame Fried Chicken & Grits ($18): Tbh, I ordered this because I read that it came with black sea cornbread, which is my favorite from Sarma's dinner menu. Sadly, it was only a small piece of cornbread but still tasted as good as I remembered. The fried chicken is also from the dinner menu and was also still good. I've never had grits before, but they added texture more so than flavor. I didn't like the bacon bits. The gravy that was provided tasted ok, but I preferred eating the chicken on its own. Chicken Shawarma ($15): I didn't like the bagel because it was way too tough, but the chicken was juicy, and I liked the spicy tahini cream cheese.

Overall, the breakfast food was just as expensive as the dinner items but half as good, so I'm disappointed. Maybe the food would have tasted better fresh, but this was a take-out only event, so the menu should have taken into consideration items that would be suitable for that. I probably wouldn't do Sarma Breakfast again, but I'll definitely be back for dinner sometime.

NOV. 2023 Sarma was 100% worth the hype! Every search of "must-try restaurants in Boston" brought up Sarma, so I knew I had to go. Luckily, I was able to find a reservation for the next day as a party of one. For bigger parties, you'll have to book further in advance. I recommend setting up alerts on Resy.

There is street parking, but it is quite sparse as most of them are taken up by residents. You also get a text with parking tips closer to your reservation time.

The place is pretty spacious, with both bar seating and tables. The decor matches the middle eastern/Mediterranean vibe.

Onto the food! I ordered everything that my server recommended: black sea cornbread, pork belly biscuits, lamb kofte sliders, and ricotta loukamades. Of course, I also had to get the off-menu fried chicken, which pops up the most in reviews. My favorites were the black sea cornbread and fried chicken. The cornbread was addictively good: fluffy on the inside but a nice crisp on the outside and had a kick but was delicately sweet. For the fried chicken, you have to wait for servers to come around and offer it to your table. Unfortunately, it came toward the end of my meal, and I tried to save room for it, but it took quite a while. I recommend having a stronger will than me because it definitely tastes better fresh than as reheated leftovers, especially the sauce. Everything else was good but not things that I would get again.

There is so much more on the menu that I want to try, so I will...

Sarma has been on the food bucket list for the past 4.5 years and we finally made it! We were lucky to nab a reservation for 5:45pm a month in advance (many calendar reminders later...). The restaurant started out with a lot of empty reserved tables (though the bar was full with walk-ins from the beginning) that quickly filled up as the evening progressed. The ambience is lovely, the menu is a delight (I really appreciate the glossary on the side), and the service was great.

We were recommended to order around 5 dishes for 2 people, and ended up getting 7. While it was a lot of food and we had to pack up about 1 dish's worth of food to-go, I don't regret trying a lot of items! I'll summarize my top picks from what we tried.

Delicious, would definitely get again The beef carpaccio ($23) was a delight. There were crunchy deep fried noodles, delicious sauces, fresh salad mix, all on top of tender beef. And, unexpectedly, a perfectly soft boiled egg/deep fried egg. When I showed this dish to my Turkish friend, he said "Oh yes, these are Turkish breakfast items." What an inventive and delicious way to reimagine breakfast as a carpaccio! The garlic shrimp lamejun ($22) was so delicious! I think there may have been some spiced shrimp paste as the "meat" layer on the flatbread in addition to the tender grilled shrimp on top, and both were delicious. I loved all of the sauces, vegetables, and flavors here. Would definitely get again! The black sea cornbread ($17) came highly recommended by our waitress and friends and it didn't disappoint! It has an almost rice-cake like glutinous texture with the perfect combination of feta, honey, and buttery flavors. It smells like heaven and it tastes so good. I will be trying to recreate this at home.

Good, may get again The fried mussels ($17) were quite good. My favorite part was actually the papaya salad on the side -- it was deliciously flavored, crunchy, and fresh. The mussels were tender and juicy inside of the breading, and interspersed with deep fried vegetables. The green curry tarator sauce didn't really stand out, though. The brussels sprout bravas ($14) with chorizo ($2) had a really nice smoky paprika flavor but the sprouts themselves were not that special/got drowned in the sauce. I would've preferred crispier sprouts. The sesame fried chicken with tahini sauce ($15 for 4 pieces) that comes out every so often from the kitchen was good, but didn't have strong flavors. The chicken was boneless and very tender, and the breading was crispy though a bit greasy.

Wouldn't get again The cheese saganaki grits ($16) were very interesting. I saw "okra gumbo" in the description and couldn't pass it up, but the gumbo component was minimal and drowned out by the cheese. I did like the grits, but I think there was too much cheese relative to the more tasty parts of the dish (grits, okra gumbo), and there was also a lot of acidic flavor from the tomatoes.

Our waitress also kindly brought us some orange creamsicle ice cream and a candle for our anniversary. The ice cream tastes just like an orange creamsicle. We were too stuffed to try any desserts, but maybe next time we will plan our meal out better!

I'd definitely love to return to Sarma to try more of their foods. I really appreciated how a lot of the dishes balanced out any heaviness with fresh salads (which were perfectly seasoned in their own rights). I was worried about having ordered too many rich/creamy things, but I needn't have worried! Everything was delicious, fresh, and distinct. The food also came out really quickly, so finishing within the 1 hour and 45 minute time limit is totally doable. Our total came out to around $165 including tax and tip, which was much less than we were expecting to pay (to be fair, we didn't get drinks or dessert), and we ended up stuffed with leftovers. Looking forward to...