Sofia Food Guide: What to Eat and Where to Eat It

Sofia is a cheap and easy city to eat well in: banitsa from a bakery window in the morning, shopska salad and rakia before dinner, and meat from the grill or a clay pot after it. This guide covers what to eat in Sofia, where to eat it from breakfast to a late dinner, which food markets to walk through, and what a meal costs in euros.

What to eat in Sofia

Sofia eats the way the rest of Bulgaria does, with white sirene cheese, thick yogurt and roasted peppers in almost everything and a grill behind most restaurant kitchens. These are the dishes I'd make sure to eat in the city, with the places that serve them well.

Beyond these eight, the traditional Bulgarian dishes worth ordering run from shkembe chorba, the tripe soup Bulgarians swear by as a hangover cure, to patatnik, a potato and cheese bake from the Rhodopes.

Breakfast in Sofia

Bulgarians start the day with pastry, and bakery banitsa is at its best between about 7 and 10 AM, when the filo is still crisp. A slice of banitsa in Sofia costs €1 to €2, and these are the four breakfast places I'd send a first-time visitor to.

Mekitsa and Coffee

Mekitsa and Coffee fries mekitsi, the puffy Bulgarian fried dough, with toppings from powdered sugar and honey to pistachio spread, sirene, or cream cheese and pesto. The owners traveled around Bulgaria looking for the right recipe before they opened. Prices start at about €2.50, so it is cheap enough for a snack later in the day too. Take it to go or climb upstairs for a seat.

Furna

Furna is a bakery on Stefan Stambolov Boulevard with a counter full of banitsa every morning. The classic is egg and sirene, and there are minced meat and sweet versions with apple, walnut and cinnamon. Each banitsa is labeled vegetarian or vegan, and the vegan fillings include lentils, carrots and mushrooms. Furna also sells sourdough and einkorn bread, yogurt and boza, and there are benches outside to eat on.

Rainbow Factory (Fabrika Daga)

Rainbow Factory has served brunch 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. The menu runs from Panagyurishte-style eggs and avocado toast to sandwiches, and the homemade banitsa comes savory with white cheese or sweet with seasonal fruit. The coffee is from Dabov, a Bulgarian roaster. The weekend brunch fills the room, so come early.

Izzy's Coffee and Brunch

Izzy's sits in the streets where many of Sofia's murals are, and the best seats are by the open balcony over the courtyard. The menu mixes Bulgarian and international brunch, from Panagyurishte eggs to French toast, and the staff have each put their favorite combination on an extras menu. They will make vegan swaps where they can. Mornings get busy.

Hotels do brunch too, and Cookó Kitchen in the Juno Hotel runs one of the most sought-after weekend brunches in Sofia.

Lunch and cheap eats in Sofia

Lunch in Sofia is a soup, a salad or something off the grill. The quickest hot meal is a kebapche or a banitsa from a kiosk or bakery, and the street food in Sofia adds gevrek, a ring of bread crusted in sesame, and hot mekitsi. For a sit-down lunch, these four are easy to reach from the center.

Soup Me

Soup Me, at Neofit Rilski 55 a few blocks from Vitosha Boulevard, makes homemade soups, and most seats are around a big communal island. It is the place I'd pick on a cold day.

Dark Sister by Made in Home

Dark Sister is the new name of Made in Home, at the same address on Angel Kanchev Street. The room is industrial with a courtyard, and I'd order the salad with black hummus and a cold tarator. There are vegetarian and vegan options, and local beers and rakia to drink.

Skapto

Skapto on Iskar Street is a burger bar with combo deals, and its beer list includes Bulgarian craft beer from Sofia Electric Brewing.

Happy Bar & Grill

Happy Bar & Grill is a Bulgarian chain that has run for about 25 years and now has a branch in London. The menu runs from sushi to schnitzel, with a sandwich or burger at about €10 to €11, so it works for a group that cannot agree on what to eat.

Where to eat a traditional Bulgarian dinner

A traditional restaurant in Bulgaria is a mehana: wooden beams, folk textiles, a long menu of grilled meats and clay-pot dishes, and often live music. Mains run from about €6 to €23. These four are the ones I'd book first, and the best restaurants in Sofia for a traditional night also include Moma, Staria Chinar and Mehana Mamin Kolyo.

Manastirska Magernitsa

Manastirska Magernitsa means "monastery kitchen," and its founders collected more than 160 recipes from monasteries around Bulgaria. The menu tells you which monastery each dish comes from, such as a Mount Athos lentil stew, and there is wild boar, rabbit, sarmi and klyopanitsa, a pork knuckle. Pogacha bread comes free, with sharena sol, a "colorful salt" spice mix, to dip it in. It sits in a 19th-century townhouse, and in summer the tables move into a courtyard under an old dogwood tree.

Hadjidraganov's Cellars

Hadjidraganov's Cellars on Hristo Belchev Street is named after Hadji Dragan, a 19th-century merchant. The restaurant is an underground cellar with stone walls and old barrels, and live folk music plays from Wednesday to Sunday evenings. Order the patatnik, a Rhodope potato and cheese bake, or a clay-pot stew. Reservations are essential at weekends.

Shtastlivetsa

Shtastlivetsa has branches on Vitosha Boulevard and on San Stefano Street. The rooms are dressed up, with velvet chairs, chandeliers, shelves of old books and, in one branch, a big floral installation hanging from the ceiling. The menu is Bulgarian with an Italian side: kebapcheta with homemade lyutenitsa, katak, mixed grill and a very good shopska. Prices are a little higher than the average Bulgarian restaurant because of the location.

Raketa Rakia Bar

Raketa Rakia Bar on Yanko Sakazov Boulevard is decorated as a communist-era throwback. The rakia list is huge, and the food is Bulgarian classics and salads to go with it. Sputnik Cocktail Bar is next door if someone in your group prefers a cocktail. Book ahead.

Modern Bulgarian cooking in Sofia

Cosmos

Cosmos on Lavele Street, behind the Palace of Justice, reworks Bulgarian and Thracian recipes with fermentation. Chef Vladislav Penov cooks under a ceiling of crystal orbs, and the Bulgarian rose dessert is the course I'd save room for. The tasting menu costs about €70 to €80 per person and needs booking in advance. It is the meal I'd save for a special night.

Lubimoto

Lubimoto at General Parensov 25 has a hidden entrance: you walk through a corridor and come out in a small courtyard. Order the Rodopska salad, the chushki burek and the pork shank or the pork loin platter. Mains cost roughly €9 to €23.

Food markets in Sofia

Central Market Hall

Central Market Hall, Halite to locals, is the covered market on Maria Luiza Boulevard, across the street from Banya Bashi Mosque. Food stalls fill the ground floor, with small shops on the level above, and the bakery section does good banitsa through the morning. It is the easier of the two markets, and the covered market hall is where I'd go on a rainy morning.

Zhenski Pazar

Zhenski Pazar, the Women's Market, is the open-air market at the end of Pirotska Street, and it is where Sofia does its own food shopping. The stalls are heaped with fresh produce and spices, and at breakfast some of them sell hot banitsa. The streets around Zhenski Pazar are good for cheap market food too, so I'd come hungry in the morning.

Coffee and cake in Sofia

Street espresso machines pour a shot for about €0.50 to €1. At the specialty end, Dabov Specialty Coffee roasts beans that score 86 or above with Q-graders, Drekka seats everyone around one long marble table, and Coffee Syndicate on Moskovska Street pairs single-origin pourovers with eclairs. Sofia's best cafes also include book cafes like Peroto Literary Club at the National Palace of Culture, and Veda House, a tea house with pages of teas.

Vegetarian and vegan food in Sofia

Bulgarian menus lean on meat, but plenty of the classics have none: banitsa, tarator, shopska salad, chushki burek and most dips. Sun Moon on 6th September Street is a vegan restaurant with a terrace, serving breakfast and Bulgarian dishes like bob chorba and mish mash made without meat or dairy. The vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Sofia also include Salted Cafe on Bratya Miladinovi Street, which does vegan wraps on einkorn bread.

Where to eat in Sofia by neighborhood

Vitosha Boulevard is where most visitors eat, and it is fine for coffee and a drink with a view of the mountain. For dinner, I'd walk a block or two into the side streets, where most of the places in this guide are.

Prices, tipping and paying in Sofia

Most central restaurants have English menus, and most take cards. The tip is not added to the bill: leave about 10%, more if the service was good, and leave it in cash if you pay by card, the usual way of tipping in Bulgaria.