Sarmale appears as a signature dish in 1 Romania cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Sarmale · Bucharest
Sarmale are sour-cabbage rolls stuffed with pork, rice and onion, simmered slowly in a pot lined with cabbage and smoked pork ribs. They arrive with mămăligă, smântână and a pickle. The Christmas table centre.
Sarmale are Romania's national dish, an adaptation of Ottoman dolma using cabbage leaves instead of grape leaves. The word itself comes from the Turkish sarma ('wrapped'). Food historian Priscilla Mary Işın dates Ottoman cabbage rolls to the early 1500s, but the cabbage adaptation became the Romanian-Balkan signature. Sour cabbage (varza acră) is the winter format; vine-leaf sarmale appears in summer. The Christmas table and the wedding banquet are the canonical contexts.
Where to eat in Bucharest:
- Caru' cu bere
- Hanu' lui Manuc
- Lacrimi și Sfinți
- Vatra
- Crama Domnească