In a quiet courtyard off Union Square, Framingham native Chef Saba Wahid Duffy has turned a Food Network win into a brick-and-mortar table that Massachusetts Muslim diners—and anyone hunting thoughtful Mediterranean cooking—can actually book. Kush Modern Mediterranean opened April 28, 2026, at 5 Sanborn Court in Somerville. As of mid-October 2026, the restaurant’s own site still lists dinner hours and Resy reservations, so the small room looks open for business.

From Chopped to a Greenway truck to Somerville

Wahid Duffy’s public culinary story is hard to miss. Patch and her restaurant biography both note that she won Food Network’s Chopped: Martha’s Rules in 2021, taking home $50,000. She used that purse to launch a food truck—the Boston Globe later placed it on the Rose Kennedy Greenway—as a scaled-down test run for the restaurant she wanted. She has also won Flavortown Food Fight ($20,000, per Patch and her bio) and reached the finals of Ciao House. Her site describes her as a five-time Food Network competitor, two-time champion, and finalist.

Before the competition circuit, she trained at New York’s French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center), worked catering and private dining, then spent years in Dubai hosting cooking and lifestyle television. After returning to Boston, her bio says she moved into culinary education, appliance demonstration work, and a nonprofit training kitchen, and later into induction-cooking advocacy with the City of Boston.

At Kush, she partners with her sister, Sara Wahid, who is Head Chef. The Globe described the pair as ethnically Pakistani and Framingham-raised; the restaurant’s about page frames the menu as modern Mediterranean shaped by South Asian roots and global kitchens—not a traditional Pakistani restaurant. The name Kush, they write, nods to the Kush Mountains near Kalat in western Pakistan, their family’s homeland, even though many guests first think of something else.

What the room and plate feel like

Kush is deliberately small: a 16-seat dining room with 90-minute seating windows and reservations through Resy. Walk-ins are welcome if a table opens, but weekends fill fast. The kitchen is cashless. Featured dishes on the live menu include a Trio of Dips (beet hummus, tzatziki, spicy moutabel with za’atar pita chips), Halloumi Crunch, and Harissa Brown Sugar Braised Beef over pearl couscous. The Globe’s June 2026 review also highlighted lamb merguez kofta, a lamb burger with whipped feta, roasted cod with tomato-fennel sauce, vegan lentils and rice, and a pistachio-cardamom ice cream sandwich. Prices on the site and in that review sit roughly in the mid-teens to low thirties per plate; menus change, so check before you go.

Halal note—ask, don’t assume

For Mass Halal readers, the important line is careful. Patch described the restaurant as a gourmet brick-and-mortar halal offering at opening. Kush’s own contact and about pages say “halal options available,” alongside vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free choices. Wahid Duffy also serves as an Aussie Beef & Lamb ambassador, showcasing grass-fed halal lamb in her cooking. We have not seen a posted certifying-body certificate on the public site. If you need every protein to meet a specific standard, call ahead or ask the staff how meats are sourced that night.

How to visit

Address: 5 Sanborn Court (also listed as Sanborn Ct), Somerville, MA 02143, Union Square. Patch’s April preview used “Sanborn Circuit”; the restaurant and Globe use Court/Ct—use the restaurant’s address when you navigate.

Hours (per kushbysaba.com): Tuesday–Thursday 5:00–9:00 p.m.; Friday–Saturday 5:00–10:00 p.m.; closed Sunday–Monday.

Phone: 774-623-4131. Email: info@kushbysaba.com. Reservations: Resy (linked from the Book a Table page). Parties larger than six should email. Parking tips on the site point first to the Union Square lot at 253 Washington St., then SP+ at 10 Prospect St.; the Green Line’s Union Square stop is nearby.

Why it matters here

Greater Boston already has beloved everyday halal spots. Kush is a different kind of stop: a competition-proven chef and her sister running an intimate dinner house where Mediterranean plates carry South Asian memory and Massachusetts roots. For Muslim families marking a birthday, a date night, or a visitor from out of town, it is one more carefully cooked seat in Somerville—worth reserving, worth asking the halal questions that matter to you, and worth supporting a local sister-led kitchen that grew from a food truck into a courtyard restaurant.