Oleana's Turkish Delights

I recently celebrated a birthday and was fortunate to secure a reservation at Oleana in Cambridge, MA. For those familiar with this restaurant, you might know that making reservations can be quite challenging. I booked a table for three people on a Thursday evening, one month in advance. Oleana is an award-winning restaurant serving Turkish and Middle Eastern-inspired small plates. Many of the dishes are innovative twists on common street food.

The restaurant has a quaint ambiance, decorated with evil eyes and hamsas (hands of Fatma). The decor, while rustic, features patterned booths and wooden tables. It’s a fairly small restaurant owned by the same group that owns Sofra, Sarma, and partners with Siena Farms. As I mentioned, the menu highlights Turkish and Middle Eastern dishes, specifically share plates, and offers an elaborate wine list. My family and I opted for vegetarian and vegan dishes and selected an Italian red wine: the 2020 Nebbiolo, Eugenio Bocchino ‘Roccabella,’ from Langhe, Piedmont, Italy.

Our waitress was lovely and knowledgeable. She suggested 2-3 plates per person and was very accommodating towards my vegan mother. The restaurant even had a separate menu highlighting dishes that can be made vegan. Our selection included Za’atar Bread, Topik, Fatteh, Spinach Falafel, Mushroom Tantuni, Potato and Red Lentil Kubba, Dark Leafy Greens, and Spanish-Style Bean Stew. Something nice about Oleana’s menu is that they offer a glossary with food names that define some terms that patrons might not be familiar with. As mentioned above, we ordered topik, fatteh, etc. All of these terms were unfamiliar to us.

To start, the za’atar bread was soft and flavorful. It was served with baked feta cheese topped with fig and tomato jam. I loved the sweetness that the figs added. My only qualm with breads that are brushed with a topping is that they tend to be oily.

Topik, a stuffed hummus dish, was definitely something we had never tried before. The glossary described it as a wrapper generally stuffed with hummus, meat, tahini, pine nuts, etc. However, this was a vegetarian dish that came as a ball, essentially a mixture of potato hummus, tahini, pine nuts, and currants. The hummus was quite thick due to the mashed potatoes. The waitress described it as a play on a meatball, but I don’t quite agree with this description. I did some further research and found that this dish is prepared by wrapping the mixture in cheesecloth, boiling, then chilling overnight.

Fatteh, a fried flatbread dish, came next. It was layered with caramelized onions, cauliflower, mushrooms, pine nuts, and yogurt. This was so flavorful, and I really enjoyed this dish overall.

The spinach falafel came on a bed of beet tzatziki and was paired with fermented veggies and tahini. These falafel were so flavorful, and the garnishes were spot on. I also wanted to show off how nicely the center was. The falafel were perfectly crisp on the outside and soft inside.

Next, we tried the mushroom tantuni, a play on a Turkish street dish that is generally a phyllo dough or thinly wrapped flatbread with meat or veggies. In this case, it was mushroom-stuffed phyllo dough. I really enjoyed it but think it was a tad heavy on the salt.

The potato & red lentil kubba came next. Coming from a family familiar with kubba, or kubbeh as we know it, this was far from the dish we know as kubba. To me, kubba is a semolina dumpling filled with ground meat or mushrooms. This variation was essentially a fried potato pancake with celery root marmalade. I don’t understand what made it kubba. I didn’t dislike it, but it was not my favorite dish as the celery root made it taste sweet.

The dark leafy greens were cooked down and seasoned well. They were paired with a red pepper tahini, which to me was unnecessary. The tahini used in some of these dishes was of great quality; however, it was unnecessary on this dish. This was a great dish for people who love sauteed greens.

Unfortunately, the Spanish-style bean stew was the least enjoyable dish of the evening. It was made with pickled peppers, celery root, green olives, and spices. Something here simply did not work for us. It was incredibly tart and not what I would expect for this dish. I would not recommend getting this dish. When I look at the picture below, it even looks unappealing to me.

For the big finale, we ordered the chocolate sarma. The closest thing I can relate this to is a Swiss roll. It was a soft baked oat cake with banana cream inside, and buffalo milk ice cream, sitting atop Turkish coffee caramel. It was divine but oh so sweet! To complement this rich dessert, we ordered some tea and espresso. Our lovely waitress brought over a vegan dessert for my mother on the house! It was so thoughtful of her. The dessert was an apricot marmalade bar with dark chocolate and rose water.

Overall, we enjoyed our outing to Oleana. It was really fun to be able to try many items off the menu and share with loved ones. My evening was made very special by my family as well as the waitstaff. While one of the dishes fell short, we enjoyed the majority of the dishes and look forward to trying Oleana again in the future. They often play around with the menu and feature many options for every dietary restriction.

⭐️ Rating: 7.9/10

I recently received some feedback on restaurant ratings and wanted to share that I have officially created a weighted average based on taste (40%), ambiance (20%), service (30%), and price (10%). Please let me know if you have any questions, and thanks for reading! :)