The Best Ice Cream in Sofia: My Gelato Shops and Benches

Ice cream in Sofia is an evening habit. On a summer night the car-free part of Vitosha Boulevard is still full of people with a cone at 11pm, and couples fill the benches in the park in front of NDK. These are the gelato shops I buy from, what a cup costs in euros, how to order in Bulgarian and the benches where I eat it.

My favourite ice cream in Sofia at a glance

My list is short: two gelato shops I'd cross town for, a bar with gelato in its name and a cake shop for groups who can't agree.

What ice cream costs in Sofia

Gelato in Sofia is often sold by weight. The server fills your cone or cup with the flavours you point at, weighs it, and the price follows. Gelato & Latte charges per 100g, and Afreddo on Vitosha Boulevard prices its ice cream by weight too.

These are the prices on Gelato & Latte's menu.

A 100g cup and an espresso on the side come to €5.63, which keeps ice cream among the cheaper treats on my list of Sofia's prices.

The best gelato shops in Sofia

I buy from these four, listed in the order I'd send a visiting friend.

Gelato & Latte

Gelato & Latte is my favourite ice cream in Sofia. The gelato is made on site to Italian methods with organic milk from Rozino Organic Farm, and the waffle cones are baked by hand. The team trained in Italy and has built up more than 400 recipes. The company also represents Italy's Carpigiani Gelato University in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe.

There are two shops in Sofia. I use the one at San Stefano 22, in the centre. The other, called Este, is at Samokov 28B in Iztok, a residential district south-east of the centre, and both open from 11am to 9pm every day.

I take two flavours in a cup, and on a cooler evening I order the affogato instead. The menu also runs to brownies, lemon or chocolate cheesecake, sweet and salty Belgian waffles, gelato cakes, gelato in jars and gelato on a stick. At €2.05, an espresso here costs about the same as in most of Sofia's cafes, so I often stay for a coffee.

Afreddo on Vitosha Boulevard

Afreddo is one of the longest-running ice cream brands in Bulgaria. Its parlour at Vitosha 12 sits near the top of Vitosha Boulevard, a few minutes' walk south of St Nedelya Church. It opens at 10am and stays open until 11pm.

The choice is big: ice creams, sorbets and several kinds of frozen yoghurt. Pick a cone or a tub and point at the scoops you want. I mix a fruit sorbet with a frozen yoghurt in one tub. Afreddo also packs takeaway tubs, which is handy if your apartment has a freezer.

Raffy Bar & Gelato

Raffy is a bar and restaurant with gelato in its name, at Racho Dimchev 10. The kitchen does pizza, risotto, burgers and salads, so I treat it as a sit-down stop: dinner at a table, a drink and gelato to finish. Its pastry chefs also make cakes to order, and it delivers through its own site, raffy.delivery, which suits a lazy night in an apartment.

100 Grama Sladki

100 Grama Sladki (100 грама сладки, "100 grams of biscuits") is a cake shop first, with branches all over Sofia. The one at Angel Kanchev 18A, a few streets east of Vitosha Boulevard, opens from 8am to 10pm. It's my pick when someone in the group would rather have cake than ice cream: a slice, a pastry or a tart with a coffee.

More ice cream parlours on my list

Confetti, Jimmy's, Savini Gelato and Gelato Fabbrica are four more ice cream parlours in Sofia, and Gaya Gelato is a small shop known for unusual flavours. Put the name into your map app for the nearest branch and its hours.

How to order ice cream in Bulgarian

These are the words I use at the counter, with the Cyrillic you'll see on the labels. Ice cream is сладолед (sladoled), from сладък (sweet) and лед (ice).

Pistachio trips people up. Шамфъстък (shamfastak) is pistachio, while фъстък (fastak) on its own is a peanut. With those words, "kolko struva?" (колко струва?, how much is it?) and "blagodarya" (благодаря, thank you), you have enough Bulgarian for travellers to order at any counter.

Where to eat ice cream in Sofia

My favourite ice cream seats in Sofia cost nothing. These are the five spots I walk a cone to, from the boulevard to the big parks, and each one has a metro station close by.

Vitosha Boulevard's car-free stretch

The car-free part of Vitosha Boulevard runs from Alabin Street to Patriarh Evtimiy Boulevard, and it has been fully pedestrian since summer 2015. It's wide, paved and shaded by trees, with glassed-in cafe terraces along both sides. I buy my cone at Afreddo and walk south with Vitosha mountain filling the far end of the street.

The stretch ends at the corner locals call Apteka (Аптека), "the Pharmacy", one of Sofia's classic meeting spots. By then my cone is usually finished.

The NDK park

Vitosha Boulevard ends at the park in front of the National Palace of Culture, and it's my favourite place in the city to sit on a wall with an ice cream and people-watch. NDK opened on 31 March 1981. Fountains run down the middle of the square in front of it, and skateboarders take over the paved terraces.

NDK metro (M2) and NDK II (M3) both stop here, so it's an easy place to finish an evening and head back to the hotel.

South Park at sunset

Cross Bulgaria Boulevard behind NDK and you're in South Park (Южен парк), 148 hectares of lawns and trees running south towards Vitosha. The open lawns face the mountain, and on a clear evening it goes pink above the tower blocks. I bring a cone and a picnic blanket, and the playgrounds make it my first pick for Sofia with kids on a hot afternoon.

Borisova Gradina

Borisova Gradina is the oldest of Sofia's big parks, 302 hectares of chestnut avenues, lakes and a rose garden on the south-eastern side of the centre. In July I pick up a scoop on the walk over and sit by the Lily Lake, where a fountain ringed by frog statues stands in the middle of the lily pads.

Orlov Most metro station (M3) comes out at the park's northern corner by Lake Ariana, and the walk from Alexander Nevsky Cathedral takes about 15 minutes. It's the biggest of Sofia's parks near the centre, twice the size of South Park, so there's always another avenue to walk after the last bite.

The City Garden

The City Garden (Градска градина) has been here since 1872, a small square of trees, benches and a big fountain between Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard and Gurko Street. The fountain sits in front of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, and amateur chess players gather on the benches beside it.

It's where I sit with an ice cream between sights, or before a night of opera or theatre in Sofia.

A summer evening ice cream walk

This is the walk I give friends on a weekend in Sofia: one cone, the car-free boulevard and a sunset at the end. Vitosha Boulevard runs 2.7 km from St Nedelya Square to South Park, and this route follows it from Afreddo at number 12 to the park.

The walk is made for summer in Sofia, when July and August average about 28°C in the afternoon and the evenings are long and light. If your legs give out at the end, the Sofia metro runs from NDK back to Serdika on line M2, and a single ticket costs €0.80.

A Bulgarian alternative: yoghurt with honey and walnuts

When I want something cold and Bulgarian, I order yoghurt with honey and walnuts (кисело мляко с мед и орехи), the sweet traditional restaurants serve after dinner. Bulgarian yoghurt is thick and tangy, and a spoon of honey and a handful of walnuts turn it into a pudding.

It's the first of the Bulgarian desserts I'd try, and in July and August I eat it as often as gelato.