You may have heard of Sofra Bakery and Cafe, a small breakfast and lunch place that serves up the big flavors of Turkey, Lebanon, and Greece, with a contemporary take on that region’s sweet and savory dishes. The cult favorite has many Wellesley-ites making the drive a comparatively teensy bit east, just down the road to Cambridge, to satisfy their adventurous palates.
You should bring your own curious tastebuds and see what all the fuss is about. Sofra is the kind of place that serves breakfast, but not scrambled eggs; lunch, but not Caesar Salad or turkey wrap; soup, but not chicken noodle. Deal me in. I make that kind of stuff at home all the time, so when I go out to eat, I am generally looking for something I can’t just whip up out of boredom and muscle memory. Sofra readily supplies that.
I was inspired to visit after the owner, Ana Sortun, and the head pastry chef, Maura Kilpatrick, paid a visit to Wellesley Books to promote their new cookbook, Soframiz, at a signing and tasting event (which I’ll tell you about in a bit). Since they were kind enough to come to our town, I decided to go and experience their hospitality in an atmosphere that offered more charm than the fluorescent-lighted basement of Wellesley Books. I wanted to see what went on in their domain. I wanted to experience the very soul of the food they brought to Wellesley and feel the vibe of the place where it was cooked.
I visited for breakfast with a friend, a regular there, who steered me toward the Spiced Barley & Lentils, served with an over-easy egg, broccolini, and garlic yogurt ($9). The yolk was nicely runny, all the better to mix around with the barley and lentils. The garlic yogurt, which I was rather unsure of given the early hour, was a big win, subtly infused, not saturated, with garlic. The broccolini gave me my first of the five veggies I strive for every day, and offered a brightly flavored counterpoint to the autumnal dish.
Other dishes on the breakfast menu: Asure, which is a whole grain hot cereal with chickpeas, pistachio, almond, dried fruit, and rose ($5); morning bun with orange blossom glaze ($3); Greek yogurt parfait with spoon sweets, grano, and honey ($6); and of course, coffee, espresso, tea, lattes, and more.
For lunch, interesting possibilities included: mushroom & freekah salad ($3.50 for a side-dish portion); carrot soup, served with two crick-cracks ($6) ; flatbread stuffed with sirloin, caramelized onion, tomato, Turkish spices, jus; creamy leek and potato pie ($8); and more.
We visited at 10am on a weekday, and the feel of the place was bustling and lively. We found a cozy corner table and enjoyed the food, the aromas, and the general good-cheer ambience of people eating food they love for being as nutritious as it is delicious. The seating is limited to around 20 indoors, and I hear, unsurprisingly, that the line can go out the door during the more prime-times. The additional 15 or so seats outdoors must be perfect in the warmer weather, but are rather cold comfort right now as the temperatures trend ever downward.
When Sortun and Kilpatrick visited Wellesley Books to promote their cookbook, Soframiz, they were confronted with what they are accustomed to on an everyday basis at Sofra — a waiting crowd of cacophonous fans and foodies. To quiet us down they fed us in a steady, ongoing way. It worked. They gave us a barley and chickpea salad appetizer; a muffin pumpkin bread; chocolate crack cookies; my favorite of the evening, a whipped feta dip with homemade crackers; and more, all from recipes they share in their cookbook.
Then, after they comforted us with food, they started on story time. Once upon a time, Ana Sortun took a trip to Turkey and asked everywhere she went for someone to please define the word Sofra, a word that continually cropped up during her travels. She kept getting different answers, always with a smile. Some said it was just a table. Some said it was pleasure. None suggested it meant stupid tourist, so she persevered, seeking an answer as satisfying as the food she experienced in Turkey. Eventually, she came to understand that it was a hospitality word meaning picnic, specifically a special table preparation of food.
From there, Sofra was born about eight years ago, with the goal of representing Middle Eastern food with a unique spin on the dishes she enjoyed there. “When we first opened Sofra it was a little scary,” Sortun said. “There was no turkey sandwich. There was not a chocolate chip cookie. There was no scone. Our customers had so many questions. We said what have we done? We’ll never make it. But we persevered, and our customers caught on.”
During the question and answer section, the big question (demand?) was: Will you make Sofra bigger? Sortun said, “We need a bigger boat, for sure.”
For sure is right. When my garden club, The Wellesley Gardeners’ Guild, took a morning tour of Mt. Auburn Cemetery, located just across the street, we sadly rejected Sofra out of hand as a lunch spot, knowing it couldn’t accommodate such a sizable gaggle. We ended up somewhere that did the job admirably, but not half as adventurously.
One audience member, of course, floated the suggestion (demand?) that they open a Wellesley location. The audience oohed and tittered, giddy with the idea of it all. Sortun was noncommittal, too diplomatic to cite the foolishness of taking on rent payments here.
So whether you wait for them to come back to us here in Wellesley — which I wouldn’t advise, since life is uncertain — or you go to Cambridge to meet them on their own terms, ready yourself to experience the idea of “sofra”, which here in the United States resides in the bricks-and-mortar embodiment of Sofra the restaurant.
Hours:
Monday-Friday 8-7, Saturday-Sunday 8-6
Occasionally, they close early on Monday evenings for cooking classes.
Thank you for writing about the Ana Sortun event at Wellesley Books. We are delighted that it was such a success and that you were inspired to visit wonderful Sofra. We are also flattered that you thought the chefs had brought the food samples with them when, in fact, most were lovingly made for the attendees by our bookstore staff. It speaks very highly of the Soframiz cookbook that our versions of Ana’s recipes were mistaken for her own!
Gillian Kohli – Owner/Wellesley Books
Wow, the Wellesley Books staff knows their way around good food. I enjoyed it so much that I just had to make a pilgrimage in to Cambridge. Gillian, I am also excited to see Elizabeth Carter Wellington when she reads from Circus Girl on 11/14.
I was getting excited – I thought they were coming to Wellesley. Darn it.