Take a peek inside chef Ana Sortun’s new Sofra in Allston

James Beard Award-winning chef Ana Sortun is adding her culinary voice to Allston's evolution with an expansion of her popular Cambridge bakery, Sofra. The new fast-casual eatery arrives as the surrounding neighborhood undergoes seismic change. The nearby streets are lined with swarms of construction crews and massive building projects that include the American Repertory Theater’s new performance center.

Sortun recalled how at least seven years ago staffing and production demands began to outgrow the original Sofra's cozy, corner building across from Mount Auburn Cemetery. So, she embarked on a search for a larger outpost. The co-owner of Sofra and Sarma in Somerville, along with her flagship restaurant Oleana in Cambridge, set her sights on a stand-alone Allston spot that’s owned by Harvard University.

Now its 5,000 square foot interior features the same saffron-hues, earthy color palette and informal vibe as the Cambridge Sofra. “There is certainly an ambience, and kind of personality,” Sortun said, “that’s palpable as you walk into the door.”

In Turkish, Sofra means a picnic, a food table or a small Kilim rug for eating. Sortun is known for her creative spins on traditional dishes from countries including Turkey, Lebanon and Greece. Containers of savory house-prepared dips and vibrant salads are stacked neatly in refrigerated cases. Intricately crafted cookies and artisan crackers are also on the menu, along with tagine, spanakopita and moussaka. Then there’s Sofra's signature meze bar featuring hummus, tzatziki and other Middle East-inspired delights.

There are about 35 seats for customers in the new cafe’s dining area, compared to 17 or so in Cambridge. More than 100 colorfully painted, wooden spoons from Turkey hang artfully on a wall. They were gifted to Sortun by a collector who’d amassed them over his life. “He wanted someone to have them who could display them for the public,” she said. In Turkey, spoons like these are used in traditional dancing.

The biggest difference between the two locations is the size of the production area for sweet and savory baked goods in Allston. “Because the other space is really tight,” Sortun said, “and we really wanted to get the bakers into a commissary space.” Her team hired additional employees to meet demand in Cambridge, but there hasn’t been enough room. “It would cause a lot of congestion and traffic jams,” Sortun said, “Our productivity would drop, and it just would be really hard to make what we needed.”

From here on in, all of the hand-crafted bakery items — from chocolatey earthquake cookies to fragrant almond rose cakes — will be prepared in the new Sofra's much larger production area, which will service both locations.

Sortun's business partner Maura Kilpatrick will lead the expanded baking program with pastry chef Feyza Bayrakcioglu, who’s from Turkey. Now huge, state-of-the-art ovens will enable them to bake 20 racks of cookies at a time.

“It's all incredibly labor intensive food,” Sortun said about the from-scratch pastries, “and the really big oven is very precise, too.” They also have a machine called a dough depositor that looks like a giant pasta machine. “It makes balls of cookies, basically,” she explained, “And we’ve had to scoop that all by hand at the other place."

Sortun said the new Sofra’s 32 employees have been eager to get to work while waiting for waves of fire inspections to wrap up. It will take time for everyone, including chef du cuisine Pri Paige, to find their rhythm in the new space. “It's like when you move into a new apartment or house,” Sortun said, “and you don't even know where the light switches are.”

Being a hub for community is a priority for the 57-year-old chef. It's also what attracted her to Allston. “It’s part of our model,” she said, “we like being part of a neighborhood that's changing and growing. I think one of the greatest feelings is when you can open something for a neighborhood and, after a few years, they feel like it's theirs.”