The Best Clubs in Sofia: 9 Places I Go Dancing

Sofia goes out late. The clubs barely fill before midnight, the latest ones keep the music on until 6am, and the choice splits neatly into techno, hip-hop, party bars, live bands and chalga. Most of the places worth your night sit in the centre. These are the nine clubs I'd send you to, sorted by music, with what the door wants, when to turn up and how to get home afterwards.

Where the clubs are in Sofia

Clubs are only the last stretch of a night out in Sofia, and four areas hold nearly all of them. For a weekend visitor, the centre and NDK are enough.

The centre and Vitosha Boulevard

This is where I start nearly every night out. Vitosha Boulevard is the high street running from St Nedelya Church down to NDK, car-free between Alabin Street and Patriarh Evtimiy Boulevard, and the streets either side of it hold most of the city's bars. The bars around the centre are where Sofia does its pre-drinks before anyone thinks about a club.

For a first drink with a view, I go up to Sense Rooftop Bar, one of the city's rooftop bars. Yalta Club, Sugar Club and Stroeja are all central too, so a night here doesn't need a taxi until the very end.

NDK and the underpass

The National Palace of Culture, NDK to everyone in Sofia, is the huge socialist-era congress centre at the bottom of Vitosha Boulevard. Sofia Live Club sits in the underpass by its fountains, and Mixtape 5 is in the NDK underpass as well, so one trip covers two gig venues. NDK has its own stop on metro line M2, handy for getting there, if not for getting home.

Studentski Grad

Studentski Grad (Студентски град), literally student town, is the university dormitory district a taxi ride out of the centre. Its discos fill with young locals and international students, and the fast food places stay open around the clock. I'd only make the trip if you're under 25 or going with a friend who studies there. For a weekend visitor, the centre has more, and you can walk home from it.

The best clubs in Sofia at a glance

Techno and electronic clubs

Yalta Club

If you only go to one club in Sofia, make it Yalta. It opened in 1991, which makes it older than plenty of the people on its dance floor, and it is one of the longest-running electronic music clubs in the city. The music is contemporary electronic, which in practice means techno and house.

The main hall runs over several levels with serious lighting. My favourite part is the -1 floor, the underground room, which is bare concrete with an industrial look. It's the room I'd head for after 2am.

Skip Yalta if you want songs you can sing along to. Sugar Club is that night.

Hip-hop, R&B and reggaeton

Sugar Club

Sugar Club plays hip-hop, R&B, funk and reggaeton to up to 400 people, with a different themed party every night of the week, dancers on the floor and a slightly kitsch interior.

This is the club I'd pick for a birthday or a group night out where everyone wants to dance to songs they know. Tables are booked by phone, and the number is on the Sugar Club website. On a Friday or Saturday I'd book one for a group of four or more, mostly so you have somewhere to put your coats.

Party bars with a dance floor

Sofia does a good line in party bars, places that start the night as a bar and end it as a dance floor once the DJ gets going. I end up in one of these three more often than in any big club.

Bar Petak (Bar Friday)

Bar Petak (Бар Петък) translates as Bar Friday, and the idea is that every night here is a Friday. It opened on 5 September 2008 and is open seven nights a week from 10pm to 6am. It left its first home at the end of 2014 for a bigger space, and the venue now has two floors, several bars and a large dance floor.

The DJ nights jump from funk, swing and jazz to reggae, Latin, hip-hop, electronic, drum and bass, trap and soul, so check what's on if you care about the music. It also puts on acoustic gigs, exhibitions and film screenings. This is my answer when it's a Tuesday and you still want to dance.

Tell Me

Tell Me is where Sofia's bohemian crowd goes to party. The parties start as early as Wednesday and run into the early hours, which makes it my pick for a midweek night when the big clubs are quiet.

It's on Ivan Vazov Street in the centre, so go after dinner and a bar or two nearby.

The Steps

The Steps is a restaurant, bar and club in one, with a busy events programme and many nights aimed at the LGBTQI community. It's the easiest place on this list to turn dinner into a dance: eat, stay on for a drink, and the club starts around you.

I'd book a table for dinner on a Friday or Saturday and leave the rest of the night open. The event decides the crowd, so check the night's listing before you go.

Live music clubs

Sofia's live music and jazz scene runs from small jazz bars to a 700-capacity hall under NDK. These three are the ones that feel like a club night by the encore.

Sofia Live Club

Sofia Live Club sits in the underpass by the NDK fountains at 1 Bulgaria Boulevard, holds 700 people and has been running since 2009. It's open every night from 7pm to 2am. Doors usually open between 7pm and 8pm, and bands go on between 8pm and 9.30pm.

The line-up runs from jazz to rock, pop and indie, and the sound is the best I know in the city. Tickets are sold through Eventim, Bilet.bg and Kupibileti.bg, and the Sofia Live Club programme lists the month ahead.

Mixtape 5

Mixtape 5 is a concert venue with two main halls, so on a busy night it can run two different gigs at the same time. The music is mostly metal, rock, punk, indie and rap, with the odd DJ night, and it's my pick for the rock and metal the big dance clubs leave out. Check the listings before you go: it's a gig venue first, and the late nights depend on who's playing.

Stroeja

Stroeja has been Sofia's home for alternative live music for almost 30 years, right in the centre. Go for the band and stay at the bar afterwards.

Summer nights in Borisova Garden

Borisova Garden is the oldest and best-known park in Sofia, and in summer it hosts the only night on this list that happens under trees.

Maimunarnika

Maimunarnika is a summer-only venue in Borisova Garden, with concerts that run from hip hop to drum and bass and hard rock. The stall at the entrance does Bulgarian classics like meatballs and shopska salad, so you can eat between sets. From autumn to spring there's nothing on, so save it for a summer trip.

Chalga clubs: the most Bulgarian night out

If you want the night out Bulgarians argue about, it's a chalga club. Chalga is Bulgarian pop-folk: dance music built on Bulgarian folk with Greek, Serbian, Turkish, Romani and Arabic influences, and the most popular music in the country. The name comes from the Turkish çalgı, a musical instrument, and the modern genre dates from 1989, after the fall of communism.

Locals often call chalga clubs discotheques, and they are sometimes the busiest venues in Sofia. The star everyone knows is Azis, the King of Chalga. I'd go with a Bulgarian friend if you can, because every song is in Bulgarian and the room sings along to all of them.

Getting in: ID, dress code and the door

You need to be 18 to get into a club in Bulgaria, and the door looks at your shoes as well as your age. Sofia dresses up more than London does for a night out: jeans and a nice top are fine in the bars and party bars, but some of the bigger clubs turn away trainers and sportswear. Large groups of men get a harder time at the door than mixed groups, so split up and arrive in twos and threes.

If someone buys you a rakia, sip it: Bulgarians drink it slowly, and shooting it marks you out as a tourist straight away. In Bulgaria a nod means no and a shake of the head means yes, so say da (yes) or ne (no) out loud at the bar.

What time clubs open and close in Sofia

Friday and Saturday are the big nights everywhere. Bar Petak runs from 10pm to 6am every night, Sofia Live Club from 7pm to 2am, and Tell Me starts its parties on Wednesday. I wouldn't walk into a club before midnight unless you want the dance floor to yourself.

This is how I'd pace a club night:

On a weekend in Sofia, I'd save the club for Saturday and keep Friday for dinner and bars, so Saturday morning isn't a write-off.

What a club night costs and how to get home

A local beer in a bar is about €2, a fraction of a London pint, and the bigger outlay is the club itself: entry depends on the night and the DJ, and concerts and guest DJ nights sell tickets in advance. Check the club's social pages that week for the price.

The Sofia metro runs from about 5am until around midnight, so use it to get out and plan another way back. A single metro ticket is €0.80, and you can tap a bank card at the barriers. The metro timetable lists the first and last trains on each line.

After midnight your options are the night buses, lines N1 to N4, or a taxi. A 24-hour transport card that includes the night lines costs €3. Taxis are the easy answer: OK Supertrans charges €1.70 to start and €0.85 per km between 10pm and 6am, so a 5 km ride works out at about €6 on the meter. The OK Supertrans price list has the day and night rates.

Sofia's licensed taxis are yellow and run on the meter. Uber doesn't run in Sofia, so I'd download TaxiMe before the night starts. If clubs are the point of your trip, stay in the centre and you can walk home from the central clubs.