Kyle Nabilcy
A plate of chicken sandwich wraps.
Chicken shawarma wrapped in the very thin bread called saj, with pickles, purple cabbage and garlic sauce.
The name Petra might not mean much to you — neither Petra Bakery and Restaurant, in Madison, nor Petra, the Middle Eastern archaeological wonder. But you’d probably recognize the building carved into a rock face from its appearance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and a small icon of that archaeological Petra graces the restaurant’s sign.
Petra, the restaurant, opened in 2021 in the Odana Road storefront where The Nile was in business for about a decade. The dining room is spacious and often sparsely populated for dinner service, even on weekend nights. Diners can take any seat they like and get to the business of eating.
It’s too bad more people don’t seem to know about the restaurant because the food was legitimately lovely every time I visited. But maybe it’s for the best, since I only ever saw one employee working the floor. Still, she got the job done, even with multiple tables under her watch.
Some of the best eating you can do at Petra is to load your table up and let everybody go to town. The menu consists of plenty of appetizers and sides, salads and sandwiches (or wraps), with dinners coming as either bowls or grill specials.
Petra does a lot of in-house baking, so get a flatbread or two to start. I enjoyed one topped with a fragrant za’atar spice blend and finely chopped Arabic cheese (squeaky and unassuming, also known as Chicago cheese).
All your Levantine favorites are on the stupendously generous mixed appetizer plate: creamy hummus and smoky baba ghanouj, plus a silky, garlicky dip called muthawama.
A side of foul, a hearty chickpea-centric dish, provides all the excuse you need to buy a bag of the house flatbread to-go. Its drizzle of olive oil is floral and aromatic. The dish is pronounced more like “full,” which you will be.
The similarity between Petra’s sambousa (pastries stuffed with vegetables) and Indian samosa is no coincidence; they’re related. Order them and you will be graced with an armload, and they are a little spicier than most samosas I’ve had.
Traditional falafel is never a bad choice, especially when it’s inside Petra’s pita, creating a crisp/chewy one-two punch. But for more complexity, try Petra’s stuffed falafel. Inside the familiar crispy chickpea fritter is a center of onions, sumac and chili paste; the sumac especially gives it a welcome zing of tartness.
Beef and lamb arayes might not be well-known to the average white Midwesterner, but if you’ve ever had tacos dorados, you’ve had something similar. Arayes are simple, just a slim dough pocket filled with seasoned ground meat. But there are plenty of them per order and there’s more of that muthawama to dip them in.
I would need to do more research to fully understand the history of the phenomenon known as the Zinger, which goes beyond Petra — it’s chicken fingers, muthawama, lettuce, cheese and pickles inside thin saj flatbread (think Indian paratha or Chinese scallion pancakes), and served with fries. Yes, the chicken shawarma saj wrap might be the more traditional, maybe even the superior choice, but it seems like Middle Eastern restaurants in the Midwest don’t get to have fun like this very often, and the Zinger is certainly fun.
The kuftah (ground beef/lamb meatball) or shrimp kebabs deliver a pleasant flame-charred quality and frankly there’s a lot of food in these dinners — and not just a heap of rice. The beef and lamb mixture in the kuftah is dosed with traditional spices, but I noticed and appreciated the nutmeg first.
One nice feature of a menu like Petra’s is that you can have whatever kind of meal you want. (Vegetarians also have good options.) Get some kebab, have a wrap, dip some flatbread, or dig into a mixed shawarma bowl and have a cup of Arabic tea. Be sure to swirl in the mint and sage leaves. Finish with some adorable baklava squares, or nougaty Turkish delight that’s miles better than the Cadbury stuff. If you’re already a fan, you know. If Petra is totally unfamiliar to you, take a leap of faith. You’ll be glad you did.
Petra Bakery and Restaurant
6119 Odana Road, 608-274-1788
petrabakeryrestaurant.com
11 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Fri.-Sat.
$3-$26
