Where to Eat Banitsa in Sofia

Banitsa is how Sofia does breakfast: filo pastry baked with eggs and salty white cheese, sold warm from bakery counters while the city walks to work. I eat more of it than I'd admit to my doctor. This is where I buy mine: the 4 places I rate, the fillings to try, how to order at the counter and what to drink with it.

What banitsa is and why Sofia eats it for breakfast

Banitsa (баница) is thin sheets of filo layered or rolled with whisked eggs and crumbled sirene, the salty white cheese that goes on half the food in Bulgaria, then baked until the top blisters and goes golden. A lot of cooks stir yoghurt into the egg mix, which keeps the middle soft. You get shattering flakes on top, a damp, cheesy layer underneath and a pastry far heavier than its size.

It's morning food. Bakeries put out fresh trays as the commuters come past, and by late morning the counters are thinning out. You eat it warm, from a sheet of paper, usually standing on the pavement. Banitsa sits beside shopska salad and kebapche on any short list of Bulgarian dishes, and it's the first thing I tell visitors to eat when they ask me about food in Sofia.

Types of banitsa to look for

Plain cheese is the classic, and every bakery has it. The rest depends on the day and the season, so read the sign above each tray.

Tikvenik, the pumpkin banitsa

Tikvenik (тиквеник) is the pumpkin one, and I buy it as soon as the pumpkins arrive in autumn. The filo is brushed with oil, scattered with grated pumpkin, sugar and cinnamon, often with walnuts, then rolled and baked. It smells like a bonfire night pudding, and it's the pastry I'd put first on any list of Bulgarian desserts.

Sweet banitsa and milk banitsa

Some bakeries sell a sweet banitsa with apple and walnut, dusted with icing sugar so it ends up down your coat. Milk banitsa is a different animal: filo soaked in milk, eggs and sugar and baked into something close to bread and butter pudding. I see it more on café menus than at bakery hatches, and I order it after lunch.

Where to eat banitsa in Sofia: my favourite places

These are the 4 places I go back to, all in the centre, plus how I pick a bakery I've never tried.

Handmade Banitza on Solunska Street

Handmade Banitza is my number one, and the leek banitsa is the reason. It's a small counter on Solunska Street, a few minutes from Vitosha Boulevard, baking cheese, leek, spinach with cheese and pumpkin banitsa, and I take mine with a bottle of boza from the fridge. One piece keeps me full until well past lunch.

Furna on Stefan Stambolov Boulevard

Furna is a vegan bakery, and its banitsa is made without egg or cheese, which makes it the first address I give anyone asking about vegan food in Sofia. The savoury fillings change: mushroom, potato with onion and thyme, beans and peppers, red lentil, lentil with curry. The sweet ones run to apple with walnut and cinnamon, and pumpkin with walnut. It's on Stefan Stambolov Boulevard, open Monday to Saturday from 8am, and it does plant milk for your coffee.

Sweet and Salty Bakery Cafe, off Vitosha Boulevard

When I want a table and a proper coffee with my banitsa, I go to Sweet and Salty, a bakery café right by Vitosha Boulevard. I order the traditional cheese banitsa, and the menu runs on to mekitsi (Bulgarian doughnuts), French toast, eggs Benedict and avocado toast, which helps when not everyone at the table wants pastry. It's my pick for a long breakfast with friends who are new to Sofia.

Fabrika Daga for a weekend brunch

Fabrika Daga, also called Rainbow Factory, is a café at Sheynovo 13V, near the Doctors' Garden, that puts a homemade white cheese banitsa on its weekend brunch menu. I order a banitsa to share, then panagyurski eggs: poached eggs on garlicky yoghurt with paprika butter poured over. Of all the brunch places in Sofia, it's the one I'd pick for a lazy weekend morning.

Any good neighbourhood banicharnitsa (баничарница)

A banicharnitsa is a banitsa shop, often a hatch in the wall of an apartment block or a kiosk by a metro exit, and banitsa from one is the street food in Sofia I eat most. I judge a new one by its queue before 9am and by the trays: warm and half empty is good, while a full tray at 11am has been sitting there since the morning rush.

How to order banitsa at a bakery counter

Point at the tray and say "edno parche" (едно парче), one piece, or ask for "banitsa sas sirene" if you can't see which tray is cheese. Some counters cut a slice from a big round tray and weigh it, with the price shown per kilo; others sell ready-cut pieces at a fixed price. Either way it comes wrapped in paper, with a napkin if you're lucky.

Carry a few euro coins. Handmade Banitza takes cards, but the smallest hatches can be cash only.

What to drink with banitsa: ayran or boza

Banitsa comes with a drink, and Bulgarians split into 2 camps. Ayran (айрян) is Bulgarian yoghurt whisked with water and a pinch of salt, cold and sharp, and it cuts through the butter and cheese. It's my pick in summer.

Boza (боза) is the other camp: thick, sweet and slightly sour, made from fermented wheat, with about 1% alcohol. It tastes like liquid malt loaf, and with a hot cheese banitsa it's my winter breakfast. Both come in plastic bottles in most bakery fridges, and every Bulgarian I know has a firm view on which of boza and ayran banitsa deserves.

Mekitsa, the other Sofia breakfast pastry

If the banitsa tray is empty, look for mekitsa (мекица): a flat round of yeasted dough fried until puffed and golden, then dusted with icing sugar or spread with jam, honey or sirene. It's lighter than banitsa when it's fresh and a brick when it isn't, so I only buy it within minutes of the fryer. Mekitsa & Coffee in the centre is the specialist, and Sweet and Salty fries them too.

When Bulgarians eat banitsa

Most days, banitsa is breakfast, eaten at a desk with a coffee or on the way to the metro. It's also the pastry Bulgarian families bake for celebrations, and the big one is New Year's Eve. The banitsa on that table hides little folded fortunes (късмети) between the layers, with wishes such as health, travel or love written on them, and the one in your slice is meant to set your year. Spend Christmas and New Year in Sofia with a Bulgarian family and you'll be handed a slice and asked to read your fortune out.

Making banitsa at home with shop-bought kori

To make banitsa at home, buy the pastry ready-made: Sofia supermarkets and market stalls sell packs of filo sheets called kori (кори за баница). You brush or drizzle each sheet with melted butter or oil, scatter over sirene mixed with eggs and yoghurt, then stack, fold or roll the sheets and bake until the top is deep gold. Feta works at home if you can't find sirene in the UK.

Fitting banitsa into a Sofia weekend

Banitsa fits around sightseeing, because the bakeries open before the museums do. This is how I'd eat it across a weekend in Sofia.