Olathe restaurateur brings comfort food home from the Mediterranean (starting with falafel bowls)

Summer Salem looked around her city for an authentic Mediterranean restaurant and found a gap in the Olathe marketplace.

Summer Salem, Darna Mediterranean; courtesy photo

So a year ago she began planning one of her own. She teamed with her husband, Abraham, who also is a partner in a downtown Kansas City Mediterranean restaurant.

But the recipes would be Summer’s own.

Darna Mediterranean opened earlier this month at 15962 Mur-len Road with the tagline “A Taste of Home, A Taste of Tradition.” Darna is an Arabic word for home.

“I called the place ‘Darna’ because I want it to feel like home,” she said. “I do all fresh ingredients and make it with passion.”

Summer was born and raised in Jordan but said her roots are in Palestine.

She previously was a make-up artist for international brands Lancôme and Dior for seven years, traveling the region. She has had a similar passion for cooking, trying new recipes, tweaking them to her liking, and then sharing the dishes with family and friends.

“Food also is art — the spices, the color of the food, coming up with new things, the presentation,” she said. “And I love working with people. I like to connect.”

But it took a year to find the best Olathe location: a light-filled spot in a south Olathe strip center near Price Chopper.

Darna Mediterranean in Olathe; photo by Joyce Smith

Her son, Adam, built the front counter. Her oldest daughter, Jasmine, did the artwork.

Falafel bowl from Darna Mediterranean; courtesy photo

The menu includes gyro sandwiches, shawarma plates, falafel bowls, chicken curry, creamy sun-dried tomato chicken (marinated chicken breast sauteed in garlic butter and coated in sun-dried tomato cream sauce), kebabs (shrimp, beef or chicken), grilled lamb chops and salmon, lentil soup, tabouleh, Greek salad and more, including Arabic ice cream (flavored with mastic gum), and baklava for dessert.

Summer originally just had a falafel wrap on her draft menu, but her youngest daughter — Nadine, a student at University of Kansas in Lawrence — talked her into adding falafel bowls.

“She said, ‘Mommy, our generation loves the bowls,’ ” Summer said. “And it has been one of the most popular orders, along with gyros and the shawarma plates.”

Appetizers include hummus, spanakopita, garlic shrimp, stuffed grape leaves with a cucumber yogurt sauce, and kibbeh (bulgur wheat, fried and stuffed with ground beef and Middle Eastern spices).

“I love to travel. But for now the restaurant will be my life,” she said.

Hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays. It is closed Mondays.

Darna offers dine-in, to-go, delivery and catering.

Abraham has been a partner in Zaina Mediterranean Cuisine & Catering since 2018, but it has been a downtown mainstay for 15 years, most recently at Crown Center.

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Startland News contributor Joyce Smith covered local restaurants and retail for nearly 40 years with The Kansas City Star. Click here to follow her on Bluesky, here for X (formerly Twitter), here for Facebook, here for Instagram, and by following #joyceinkc on Threads.