Chef Sets are available for purchase at Sofra Bakery. Chef Sets are boxed meal sets, featuring aromatic spices & grain packs and allow customers to prepare Sortun’s inspired dishes with ease, from the comfort of their home kitchens. They envisioned an informal Middle Eastern café and retail store, which would feature Kilpatrick’s pastries, savory selections, house-made pantry delicacies, and carefully selected artisan products from around the world.Ī strong advocate for healthy cooking, Sortun released a product called Chef Sets, in partnership with Set Point Health, in Newton. In 2008, Sortun and business partner Maura Kilpatrick opened Sofra Bakery.

Following stints at 8 Holyoke and Casablanca in Harvard Square, she opened Oleana in 2001, immediately drawing raves for dishes that The New York Times described as “rustic-traditional and deeply inventive.” Awarded the “Best Chef: Northeast” honor by the James Beard Foundation in 2005, Sortun published her first cookbook, SPICE: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, in 2006 it has become a bestseller. The colors and textures in the kitchen spill into the blue-hued dining room, where diners can linger over their meals from plush banquettes in whimsical shades or enjoy a drink at the luxe, poured-concrete bar, which seats twenty.Ĭited as one of the country’s “best creative fusion practitioners,” by The New York Times, Seattle-born Ana Sortun graduated from La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine de Paris before opening Moncef Medeb’s Aigo Bistro in Concord, Massachusetts, in the early 1990s. And makes them ripe for pairing with food-friendly cocktails, craft beers or a glass of wine from the restaurant’s small but carefully curated list. Her deft hand gives the little dishes big flavor without making them heavy. The Somerville restaurant, which opened in Winter Hill in the fall of 2013, cultivates a spirit of community through an easily shareable menu of meze (small plates), distilled spirits and beautifully designed surroundings.ĭrawing on culinary traditions from all over the Mediterranean, the menu features hand-selected craft ingredients enhanced by Piuma’s nuanced use of spices and fresh herbs. The much-anticipated collaboration from chefs Ana Sortun and Cassie Piuma, Sarma takes its cues from the neighborhood restaurants (meyhane) of Istanbul.

Sarma somerville