Sarma Review: An Experimentalist’s Dream

A hop, skip, jump, T-ride, and narrowly missed bus away from Harvard Square sits Sarma. It’s a charming little place tucked between a cute residential neighborhood and the imposing Somerville High School. The fare, however, goes well past charming and into the risk-prone, adventurous sphere of experimentalism.

The restaurant is frankly beautiful. Its cozy bricks are complemented by gorgeous painted plates mounted on the walls, keeping with its blue color scheme. Water arrives immediately and the servers are top-notch.

The menu lays out an array of options from their family-style, primarily Mediterranean cuisine, accompanied with a helpful glossary of terms so that culturally ignorant diners — see also: me — can enjoy a muhammara or a panzanella without undergoing the strenuously self-conscious task of Googling the name of a dish.

The avocado muhammara — an avocado- and burrata-based twist on the classic spicy red dip — unfortunately does not come with bread included, which feels a little counterintuitive. By Courtesy of Joshua Hansen

The avocado muhammara — an avocado- and burrata-based twist on the classic spicy red dip — unfortunately does not come with bread included, which feels a little counterintuitive — although there is a five-dollar bread side available.

Breadless or not, the Muhammara simply stuns. One bite is all it takes to imagine the full Sarma dining experience — one soaked in never-ending flavor and delightful combinations of tastes. The spice level is dialed to perfection, and the avocado combined with the pepper and pistachio creates a sensation of warm goodness in the mouth, which the burrata cuts through perfectly with its cool, fresh flavor.

Staying on the vegetarian side of things, the preserved lemon Caesar salad — a clever little dish topped with gloriously crunchy sweet potato shoestring fries — is not very Caesar-eque, but still very salad. By Courtesy of Joshua Hansen

Staying on the vegetarian side of things, the preserved lemon Caesar salad — a clever little dish topped with gloriously crunchy sweet potato shoestring fries — is not very Caesar-eque, but still very salad. It earns its $15 price point both for its texture and for its brilliantly simple balance of flavors injected with a zesty lemon overtone.

Throughout dinner service, aesthetically plated specials are flaunted by servers milling around in a tantalizing invite to diners. It’s almost as if the whole experience is crafted to make one forget their sense of time and space and simply give in to the myriad of snack-sized — but full-priced — options.

One of those options, the haloumi baklava, is fairly representative of the Sarma dining experience as a whole. While an expertly crafted experimental dish that clearly has a lot of effort put into it, it does suffer from a combination of flavor profiles that may just be too different. The pairing with warm pineapple isn’t necessarily distasteful, but it uniquely weighs personal preference into the enjoyment of the dish.

The fregola carbonara is an enigma — especially given that it’s not a carbonara. By Courtesy of Joshua Hansen

The fregola carbonara is an enigma — especially given that it’s not a carbonara. There isn’t any egg nor guanciale — the only real connection to the classic pasta is the Pecorino cheese that tops it. Either way, the ill-fitting name only mildly brings down the dish, with the fregola-based and squash-topped bowl staying squarely middle-of-the-road in terms of Sarma quality.

Sarma’s lamb köfte sliders are simply strange and certainly a low point of the menu. By Courtesy of Joshua Hansen

Sarma’s lamb köfte sliders are simply strange and certainly a low point of the menu. They feel like the pick for diners that aren’t keen on subjecting themselves to the risks of experimenting, with the dish amounting to something that is ultimately a hamburger. The meat has no signature lamb flavors, and the seasoning is minimal, leading to a just plain boring dish — a transgression that Sarma thankfully doesn’t repeat.

The swordfish, one of the focal points of the menu both by price point and server recommendation, is a meltingly tender slab of fish. By Courtesy of Joshua Hansen

The swordfish, one of the focal points of the menu both by price point and server recommendation, is a meltingly tender slab of fish topped with — you guessed it — wasabi yogurt, served on a bed of vegetables and dolmades — grape leaves stuffed with rice. The eggplant-based concoction of vegetables meld into a comforting sweetness in the mouth, which is only amplified when combined with the swordfish. The odd man out is, of course, the wasabi. It’s just a tiny bit too much. Even if upon first impression a bite is wonderful, there inevitably comes a wasabi aftertaste that overstays its welcome. Either way, it’s a small gripe in a sea of perfectly cooked swordfish.

Sarma is certainly tasty — there’s no doubt about it. The experimentation is bold and deserves recognition, and Chef Piuma finds uniqueness in a city with a long list of repetitive restaurants for each type of cuisine. The biggest problem, though, is that a dinner for two with some mild overordering can come out to around $175. Is that price worth it? Probably. Is there hesitation in that answer? Certainly. It’s experimentation at a premium — a palate at a price. But a hop, skip, jump, and — hopefully not — missed bus ride to Sarma at least once should certainly be something on every Cantabrigian’s list, wasabi yogurt or not.

—Staff writer Alessandro M. M. Drake can be reached at alessandro.drake@thecrimson.com.