Restaurants in Somerville

Mary and Shelly Withers let more than two decades of cooking together shine through in the kitchen, which fills with the crackling of hot oil and the slower contralto bubbling of stews and gravy as the two work in concert. Flanked by berry-colored walls, diners take seats at raw-wood tables and benches to dig into soul-food favorites such as baked mac 'n' cheese, fried catfish nuggets, and jerk chicken. Caterers laden with trays bound for weddings and other events rush past diners slowly working through cups of coffee and Mary's red velvet cake, which lets feasts end gradually, unlike picnics in wind tunnels.

Every day, fresh fish gets wrapped with nori and rice as chefs craft Sumo Sushi’s signature rolls. The Sakura Lady roll mimics the color scheme of its floral namesake with spicy salmon rolled in pink soy paper. Other colorful maki include the avocado-topped green dragon and the rainbow, which, like a merman after a ticker-tape parade, is covered in strips of tuna, salmon, yellowtail, and fluke.

Not limiting itself to sushi, the kitchen staff invites palates on a culinary tour of Asia with its cooked chef’s specials. Japanese dishes include curry katsu, chicken or pork breaded in panko crumbs. Curry gets a Thai twist in dishes such as green curry with basil and red curry scented with lemongrass. Kung pao chicken is cooked with peanuts in the traditional Chinese style, and Korean-style kimchi lends heat to chicken or pork.

Look out the window of Zinna's Bistro and you'll spot a lush, vibrant garden from which the BYOB restaurant's chefs cull freshly grown produce to fuel their salads, pastas, and pizzas. An ample dinner menu showcases the Italian-American bistro's veggies: arugula, cherry tomatoes, and red onion make a bed for strips of succulent steak grown from the garden's steak trees. For a closer look at the flowering garden, patrons can sit outside on a patio while dining on ravioli stuffed with four cheeses or breaded chicken smothered in tomato sauce and mozzarella, all the while listening to live acoustic music on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Making use of old family recipes, Italian tradition, and imported ingredients, the La Duca family has kept its doors open to patrons of La Bella Via since 2006. Equipped with a custom-made, wood-fired brick oven, chefs craft rustic, thin-crust pizzas, fresh-baked semolina bread, and hearty calzones. Meanwhile, ropes of fresh pasta emerge from pots of boiling water to mingle with a rich, housemade meat sauce of Roma tomatoes, or weave together to be worn as a delicious sweater.

Captain Ernest Ditlew Knuth, a child runaway turned sailing-vessel captain, retired from the seafaring life in the 1920s and opened a restaurant in the bustling port of Brooklyn, New York with his wife Paula Uhl. After hearing the call of the rural life in the 1930s, the duo decided to take their culinary experience to the hills of Bucks County where they set up shop in a pre–Revolutionary War farmhouse. Since then, the Cascade Lodge's resident chefs have crafted a bevy of classic bistro dishes, many of which they flambé tableside.

Nestled into wooden chairs encircling the wood-burning stove at the center of the room, diners can savor succulent meats or fresh-trout flambé fished from the onsite trout pond as they telepathically commune with the majestic horses and deer speckling the surrounding Delaware Valley pastures.

The name of Cervantes of Spain Restaurant honors the author of the 17th-century novel Don Quixote, considered to be one of Spain’s finest writers. The traditions of the Iberian Peninsula are held in high regard throughout the eatery, where flamenco dancers whirl billowing skirts in paintings above Spanish Renaissance–style furniture. At those tables, conversation swells around tapas such as spanish chorizo sautéed in sherry. The heat of traditional, fire-blackened pans continues to cook lobster, scallops, and sausage with saffron rice in Valencia-style paella. Live flamenco and jazz musicians fill the space with the complex rhythms of a tap dancer in a bubble-wrap factory, and open-pit pig roasts fill the outdoor patio with succulent aromas. Glasses clink together, letting the bouquets of Spanish wines blend and slices of fruit drift slowly down through six types of sangria.