Where to Eat Banitsa in Sofia

Banitsa is how Sofia eats breakfast: filo pastry baked with egg, yogurt and white sirene cheese, bought hot from a bakery. It costs €1 to €2 and is best in the first hours of the morning. Here are the bakeries, cafes and markets where I'd buy it, which fillings to ask for, and what to drink with it.

What is banitsa?

Banitsa is Bulgaria's national pastry. Thin sheets of filo are layered with a filling of whisked eggs, Bulgarian yogurt and crumbled sirene, a brined white cheese close to feta, then baked until the top is golden and crisp. The filo shatters at the first bite, and the inside stays soft, creamy and a little salty.

It comes in two forms. The tray version is baked flat in a large pan and cut into squares. The rolled version is filo wrapped around a filling and coiled into a spiral or baked in long strips. Sofia bakeries sell both, and both turn up on restaurant menus, the sweet versions often as dessert. Banitsa sits with shopska salad and tarator at the top of any list of Bulgarian food to try.

Banitsa fillings to try in Sofia

The pumpkin version has a close cousin in tikvenik, a sweet pumpkin filo pastry that sits with baklava and garash cake among the Bulgarian desserts to order after dinner.

How and when to eat banitsa in Sofia

Banitsa is freshest between about 7 and 10 AM, while the morning trays keep coming out of the oven. Straight from the tray it is crisp and hot, and by the afternoon it has gone soft and tastes like a different pastry.

Bulgarians eat it at the bakery counter or take it away, with a drink. Ayran, the salted yogurt drink, is the usual partner, and boza, a thick, semi-sweet drink of fermented grains, is the old-fashioned one. Some people add honey or jam.

The best bakeries for banitsa in Sofia

Furna

Furna is a bakery on Stefan Stambolov Boulevard with a counter of banitsa that fills up every morning. It covers the full range: classic egg and sirene, spinach and cheese, minced meat, and sweet versions with apple, walnut and cinnamon. Every banitsa is marked vegetarian or vegan, and the vegan fillings include lentils, carrots and mushrooms. There is also pumpkin with walnut and brown sugar, and potato with carrot.

A banitsa at Furna costs roughly €1.30 to €1.50, depending on the filling. The bakery also sells sourdough and einkorn bread, yogurt, juice and boza, and makes coffee. On a warm morning, eat it with a latte on the benches outside.

Hlebar

Hlebar is a bakery that sells banitsa all day, with a branch at Vasil Aprilov 14 and others in the Doctors' Garden area, on Oborishte Street and Shishman Street. The fillings go beyond cheese: sweet apple, raisin and brown sugar, or savory potato and mushroom.

Two espressos and two banitsas at Hlebar cost about €5.60. Its banitsa is a matter of taste, and some find it on the dry side. I'd go for the apple and raisin.

Sofiyska Banitsa

Sofiyska Banitsa, "Sofia banitsa," has a shop on Graf Ignatiev Street, and its name recalls the small banitsa shops that once stood on Sofia's street corners. I'd order the old breakfast pairing there: cheese banitsa with a cup of boza.

Cafes and restaurants with good banitsa

Rainbow Factory (Fabrika Daga)

Rainbow Factory is a brunch cafe that has served breakfast and specialty coffee since 2014. One of its two branches is temporarily closed, and the one still open is a metro stop or two from the center. Its homemade banitsa comes savory with white cheese or sweet with seasonal fruit, and it is the place to eat banitsa sitting down, as part of a full Bulgarian breakfast with thick yogurt, local cheese, eggs and fresh bread. It opens early and fills with locals, and at weekends it pays to arrive before the brunch crowd. The coffee is from Dabov, a Bulgarian roaster.

Coffee Syndicate

Coffee Syndicate on Moskovska Street, near the National Gallery and Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, is a specialty coffee shop that makes an unusual kimchi banitsa next to its eclairs. Pair it with a single-origin pourover or the Espresso Fizz. It is my pick for anyone who has already had the classic and wants a modern twist, and Sofia's other specialty cafes, from Dabov to Drekka, sit within a short walk.

Manastirska Magernitsa

Manastirska Magernitsa is a traditional restaurant whose menu comes from monastery recipes collected around Bulgaria, and banitsa is on it alongside sarmi and slow-cooked wild boar. Order it to share before the mains. It is the best place in the center to eat banitsa as part of a full Bulgarian dinner, and it needs booking several nights ahead.

Hadjidraganov's House

Hadjidraganov's House on Kozloduy Street, near Lion's Bridge, serves banitsa as dessert, with orange syrup poured over it. The restaurant spreads over four houses from 1886, each room decorated like a different Bulgarian town, with a band playing. Order the sweet banitsa after the house rack of lamb, roasted the St George way.

Raketa Rakia Bar

Raketa Rakia Bar on Yanko Sakazov Boulevard is a communist-era throwback with a huge rakia list and a kitchen of Bulgarian classics, and banitsa is one of them, along with mekitsa. It is the place for banitsa at lunch or with a glass of rakia, any time from 11 AM. Moma Bulgarian Food and Wine and Izbata Tavern also keep banitsa on their menus.

Banitsa at Sofia's markets

Central Market Hall

Central Market Hall, the covered market on Maria Luiza Boulevard across the street from Banya Bashi Mosque, has a bakery section that makes good banitsa through the morning. Buy a slice, then walk the food stalls on the ground floor, with small shops on the level above. The market hall is indoors, which makes it my first choice on a cold or rainy morning.

Zhenski Pazar

Zhenski Pazar, the Women's Market, is the open-air market at the end of Pirotska Street, and its stalls sell hot banitsa at breakfast. It is where Sofia does its own food shopping, and the streets around it are good for cheap market food. Go in the morning, eat your banitsa with an ayran, then walk the stalls of Zhenski Pazar for fresh produce and spices.

New Year's banitsa with a coin inside

At New Year, Bulgarians bake banitsa with something hidden inside: a coin, a small charm or a slip of paper with a fortune written on it. The banitsa is cut into one piece per person, and whoever finds the coin is meant to have luck in the year ahead. It is the banitsa to ask about if you are spending New Year in Sofia.

What banitsa costs in Sofia

The rest of eating in Sofia is cheap as well: a main course at a traditional restaurant costs about €6 to €23, and Mekitsa and Coffee tops its mekitsi with anything from pistachio spread to cream cheese and pesto.