Exotic flavors light up Sofra

The Turkish breakfast (left) at Sofra is a soft-boiled in a crunchy nest of phyllo dough, beside fruit-topped yogurt and cheese croquettes. (Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff)

The transformation of the dive that was Violette Wine Cellars into the sleek Sofra Bakery and Cafe is remarkable. The curved freestanding 50-year-old building - its glazed tan and Granny Smith-green facade trimmed with shiny chrome - always had potential. Now the storefront boasts the name Sofra in bold red letters, which replaces a glass and steel Violette sign hung vertically above the shop, dangerously dropping panes over the years. What a sight.

Chef Ana Sortun's new place is polished: kilim rugs cover birch benches, low round copper drums are for eating, a stack of modern birch stools offer additional seating, glass pendant lights hang from the ceiling, a stainless steel kitchen is open behind white marble counters, and some of the only decor are baskets of picture-perfect produce grown by Sortun's husband, Chris Kurth, of Siena Farms. Design Within Reach meets Istanbul bazaar.

The cafe seats about 20, and from almost every perch you can see bakers rolling dough, making cookies, tending two domed ovens that heat your sandwiches on their curved tops. Sheets of kraft paper with a hand-lettered menu hang above the counter, where clusters of buns, baby tarts, and pastries dusted with sumac, za'atar, sesame seeds, and other spices are stacked high.

Sofra, explains the menu, is Turkish/Arabic for a "picnic on a rug; a low communal table; a small square kilim rug to eat on; a large coffee table; a special table preparation." Sortun, who became nationally known at Oleana in Cambridge, co-owns this venture with pastry chef Maura Kilpatrick and business partner Gary Griffin, both from Oleana. Violette's owner, Richard Kzirian, will eventually open a wine shop in an adjacent room.

The food is Turkish, Lebanese, and Greek, which makes Sofra a kind of baby Oleana. And unless you've traveled to those regions, these dishes aren't familiar. Cheese borek ($6), for instance, often a crisp phyllo-dough pastry, here resembles a square of lasagna with paper-thin pasta. It's high and airy, mozzarella spread between layers of soft yufka dough. Stuffed and rolled flatbreads ($6) come off the domed ovens crisp and luscious, bright spinach and herbs tucked into one, tomatoes and eggplant into another. This is labor-intensive food, made with the best ingredients, so every bite is exciting. An ordinary mesclun salad in a brimming bowl ($5), dressed with lemon and olive oil, tastes better than any greens you've eaten in a while.

At breakfast early one weekend, we feast on a Persian doughnut ($2.50), a round feathery ball flavored with rose petals and coated with aromatic spices and sugar. A buttery croissant (all pastries are homemade) is split and filled with an orange-and-chocolate flavored ricotta ($3). Only Greek yogurt layered with grano and honey ($4) is disappointing, the grain chewy where you're expecting crunch, and a fried egg with pita crumbs ($5), the egg tucked under a kind of crumb pattie, more elaborate than interesting.

A Turkish breakfast ($8) knocks us out. A soft-boiled egg is sitting in a crunchy bird's nest of phyllo dough, beside thick yogurt topped with "spoon fruits" (they're whole and jammy), two baby cheese croquettes, tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives. Umm-ali, an Egyptian phyllo-dough pudding ($3.50), takes our feast over the top. With golden raisins and pears, and phyllo crushed into cereal flakes, it's a square of buttery crunch. The tea is made from real leaves, the coffee terrific, and the room bathed in sunlight.

Weekends, when the place is jammed, the kitchen gets backed up and there's no place to wait. Turkish coffee takes so long we have to ask about it. One Hummerlike stroller makes the spot too tight to turn around in.

This is slow food in a fast-food setting. What Sortun and Co. are trying to do is admirable. If we're patient, they'll succeed. You want them to. No one in the area is doing anything this ambitious - or this good.