Since opening Puritan & Company in 2012, chef Will Gilson has added four more restaurants in Cambridge—and his team has learned a lot with every new spot. This month, Gilson’s Cambridge Street Hospitality Group introduces its latest, Amba Cafe and Rotisserie, which aims to meet the dining moment in a rapidly growing part of the neighborhood.
With an all-day menu of flavorful, fulfilling fare and grab-and-go options for families, the culinary concept at Amba is informed by how people’s dining habits have changed in recent years, Gilson says. On the corner of First Street at Spring Street, it will also eventually have First Street Market next door, a unique venue with a year-round “farmers market,” a bar and vintage piano-equipped events space.
Cambridge Street Hospitality opened a block of restaurants at the newly developed Cambridge Crossing in late-2020: The Lexington, Geppetto and Café Beatrice. Delayed by the pandemic, today those operations reflect adjusted numbers of office workers in the area, as well as more young professionals and families seeking healthful, easy dining options, Gilson says. Amba gives those folks more choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner in a counter-service setting.
The new café’s name describes a tangy mango sauce of Middle Eastern Jewish origin and alludes to Amba’s inspiration. Flavors on the menu—fortified by spice blends from Cambridge’s own Curio Spice Co.—celebrate diversity across the Mediterranean region, centered on shawarma-rubbed, crispy-skin roast chicken.
Breakfast served 8-11am features a shawarma wrap with sesame eggs, potatoes cooked in rotisserie drippings, garlic sauce and herbs inside fluffy pita; plus a breakfast malawach wrap, a flaky flatbread traditional to Yemeni cuisine. Pastries like savory boreka and kunefe, a syrup-soaked dessert filled with sweet cheese, are also on deck, care of Cambridge Street Hospitality’s acclaimed executive pastry chef, Brian Mercury. Preview the opening menu below.
Lunch and dinner see the likes of hummus, muhammara and other meze (also available packed to-go from a takeaway cooler); latkes served with sour cream and amba sauce; matzoh ball soup; pita sandwiches like the Sabich, filled with roasted eggplant, sliced hard-boiled egg, amba sauce, black garlic tahina and a crunchy farmers salad; burgers stuffed into pita pockets, including a “Pita Mac” riff on the classic fast food; shawarma rice plates and salads. Rotisserie chicken is available by the half and whole bird, with or without a choice of two sides and sauces. Alongside counter-service ordering and seat-yourself dining in, everything is available for pickup and third-party app delivery.
In the open kitchen, the rotisserie oven will spin along with two beverage bubblers keeping cold libations like spiced pomegranate tea, mint lemonade and a vegan-friendly “halva shake,” made of the Middle Eastern confection blended with coconut milk, maple and vanilla. Visitors will have the option to spike these drinks with alcohol. La Colombe Coffee, Topo Chico and other soft drinks, and various wines and beers are also available.
The warm, bright café with plush pink benches is conducive to remote work with outlets accessible. Designed by local firm Joe the Architect, it has an accent wall of gilded irises (Gilson’s wife’s favorite flower) as well as macrame hanging planters and snake-plant separators around the seating area.
“For us as a group, we enjoy the fact that we're not on the busiest streets. We want to be a part of our community,” Gilson says of his growing company, which also includes Puritan Oyster Bar in Inman Square. That was a big part of signing onto this new development on First Street, a few-minutes’ walk across Lechmere Square from Cambridge Crossing. The café and multi-use space next door fill long-vacant storefronts on the ground level of a municipal parking garage. (So yes, there is ample parking.)
Programming at First Street Market will ramp up in September with pop-up performances from Sofar Sounds and events like pottery-making nights. Gilson, whose family owns the Herb Lyceum, a century-old farm and (more recently) events venue in bucolic Groton, says his team is currently developing vendor relationships and a plan to bring in a rotating lineup of local ingredients and art to the space.
Amba opens for the neighborhood on Wednesday, July 17, with soft-opening to start from 8am-4pm. Delivery options and extended hours until 8pm will start July 23.
