The Best Restaurants in Sofia: 11 Places I Send Friends

Sofia's best tables are still Bulgarian ones: clay-pot stews in cellars with a folk band, monastery recipes in a literary critic's old house, and one fine-dining room that keeps winning the national awards. These are the 11 restaurants I send friends to, with what to order at each, when to book, what a meal costs in euros and how tipping works.

My favourite restaurants in Sofia at a glance

Most of my eating in Sofia happens standing up, at banitsa kiosks, cafes and market stalls, so the 11 places below are the ones I pick when I want a table for two hours.

The price column is food only, from € for a bowl of soup or a grill plate up to €€€€ for the fine-dining dinner.

What a mehana is: Sofia's traditional Bulgarian restaurants

A mehana (механа) is a Bulgarian tavern. Expect wooden benches, red woven tablecloths, clay pots, a charcoal grill and a rakia list longer than the wine list. The order of a meal is fixed: a salad and a rakia first, hot dishes once the salad bowl is half empty, and everything in the middle of the table to share.

The good ones in central Sofia are busy with visitors and with Bulgarian families on a Sunday, and the four below are the ones I rate for the food as much as the costume.

The best traditional Bulgarian restaurants in Sofia

Hadjidraganovite Izbi

Hadjidraganovite Izbi, Hadjidraganov's Cellars, is the mehana I book for a friend's first night in Sofia. It's underground at Hristo Belchev 18, on the corner with Solunska Street, just off Vitosha Boulevard. A live band plays Bulgarian folk music every evening except Monday, which is the reason to come for dinner. It's full of visitors on a Friday, and the food still holds up.

Order the pork knuckle or anything baked in a clay pot, with a quince rakia to start. Skip it for a quiet dinner for two, because once the band starts you'll be shouting.

Hadjidraganovite Kashti

The Kashti (the Houses) belong to the same owners as the Izbi and sit north of the centre at Kozloduy 75, by the junction with Maria Luiza Boulevard near Lion's Bridge. Their band plays from 20:00 to 23:00 every evening except Tuesday, so the Kashti covers the Monday when the cellars are quiet. It's open every day from 11:30 to 23:30, and bookings go through +359 899 917 837 or the Kashti's website.

I'd pick it if you're staying near the Central Station or the Women's Market, or if the Izbi is full. If your hotel is around Vitosha Boulevard, the Izbi is the same kind of night much closer.

Manastirska Magernitsa

Manastirska Magernitsa (Манастирска магерница, the monastery kitchen) cooks recipes collected from monasteries all over Bulgaria. It's my pick for a friend who wants proper Bulgarian food without a folk show. The restaurant fills the house of Professor Krastyo Krastev at Han Asparuh 67. Krastev was the first Bulgarian literary critic after the Liberation, and more than a century ago he and the writers Pencho Slaveykov, Peyo Yavorov, Petko Todorov and Todor Vlaykov met here and founded the magazine Misal. The cornel tree they met under still stands in the courtyard, and that's the table to ask for in summer.

The portions are big, and the menu has meatless lenten dishes alongside the meat. I order the nettle soup and a glass of the raspberry wine. It opens every day from 12:00 to 23:00, and I book weekend dinners a few days ahead on +359 899 949 400 (Viber and WhatsApp too) or through Manastirska Magernitsa's website.

Pod Lipite

Pod Lipite means "under the linden trees", and its big open terrace is why I go in summer. It's one of the oldest restaurants in Sofia, a classic mehana at Elin Pelin 1 in Lozenets, a leafy residential district south of the centre and a short taxi ride from Vitosha Boulevard.

This is my choice for a slow weekend lunch of grilled meat and a carafe of red with Bulgarian friends. On a two-night trip I'd stay central, since Manastirska Magernitsa does the same job on foot.

The best modern Bulgarian restaurants in Sofia

Moma Bulgarian Food and Wine

Moma is where I take people who've had their fill of clay pots. It's at Solunska 28, a few minutes' walk from Vitosha Boulevard, and it cooks folk recipes with a lighter hand and a menu that changes with the seasons. Moma is the old Bulgarian word for a young unmarried woman, the girl in half the folk songs.

Order the duck roasted in a dough crust if it's on. Wine is half the restaurant's name, and it's my table for trying the best Bulgarian wines with dinner. Book a day or two ahead for Thursday to Saturday. There's no band, so it's the table for a long conversation.

Shtastliveca

Shtastliveca (Щастливеца) is the restaurant on Vitosha Boulevard I book when a mixed group can't agree on anything. It opened in Veliko Tarnovo in 1997 and takes its name from the writer Aleko Konstantinov, nicknamed "the Lucky One", whose line "that I'm a lucky man, all of Bulgaria knows" the restaurant quotes.

The rooms are dressed like a European city home of the 1930s, and the kitchen cooks modern Bulgarian and Eastern European food from farm and artisan produce. A second Sofia branch sits at San Stefano Plaza. For an intimate dinner I'd book Moma instead.

Fine dining in Sofia

The Michelin Guide doesn't cover Bulgaria, so the awards to watch in Sofia are the Bacchus restaurant awards, and one restaurant keeps winning them.

Cosmos

Cosmos, at 19 Lavele Street in the centre, is my special-occasion restaurant. Chef Vladislav Penov gives traditional Bulgarian cooking a modern twist, with produce from Bulgarian farms. The dining rooms mix folk embroidery with astronomy-themed lighting and seat up to 100 people across several halls.

Bacchus named it Restaurant of the Year in 2018, 2022 and 2023, after naming it the best modern Bulgarian restaurant in 2017, and it belongs to JRE, the Jeunes Restaurateurs association. Budget for the most expensive meal on this list, and book several days ahead through Cosmos on Dineout, further out for a Friday or Saturday. Skip it if your idea of a Bulgarian night out is rakia and a folk band.

Cheap and casual restaurants in Sofia

Lunch is the cheap meal here. Plenty of restaurants put out an обедно меню (obedno menyu), a weekday lunch menu of soup and a main, for about €6 to €7. Before lunch, the cheapest Bulgarian meal in the city is a slice of banitsa from a kiosk, and the cheap eats on Sofia's streets run from there to gevrek and roasted corn.

Made In Home

Made In Home, at 30A Angel Kanchev Street, is my easy weekday lunch. The room is retro and the cooking home-style, and it's one of the easier menus for vegetarians in Sofia. Order the meatballs in tomato and chickpea sauce if they're on.

Raketa Rakia Bar

Raketa, on Yanko Sakazov Boulevard by Zaimov Park, is a rakia bar with a Bulgarian kitchen, decorated with socialist-era odds and ends. I send friends here on the evening after the Museum of Socialist Art, because the theme carries on through dinner. Order a shopska salad and work through a few rakias, asking for the fruits you haven't tried: grape, plum, apricot, quince. Book for a weekend evening. Skip it if you don't drink, because the rakia list is the point.

Divaka

Divaka (the wild man) serves big plates of grilled meat at low prices from three branches in the centre: Hristo Belchev 16, a few doors from the Izbi; William Gladstone 54; and 6th September 41A. Three kebapche or three kyufte cost €8.18, and the 450g Divaka chop €10.73. All three open from 11:00 to 22:00, and for me it's a lunch or a group dinner, never a date.

Supa Star

Supa Star is a small soup bar in the centre with six soups a day, tarator among them, to eat in or take away. It's my go-to cheap lunch, and with a room this tiny I take mine away on a sunny day.

What to order in a Bulgarian restaurant

These are the Bulgarian dishes I'd order at a first dinner, with the Cyrillic so you can find them on a menu. Central restaurants usually have an English menu, and the Cyrillic still helps with the specials board.

Start the way Bulgarians do, with a shopska salad. It comes in the colours of the flag, white cheese, green cucumber and red tomato. I judge a new mehana by its shopska: the cheese should be sheep's milk sirene, grated thick.

Rakia goes with the salad, sipped slowly over half an hour. Grape and plum are the classics, and the apricot and quince ones are where the house rakias get interesting. Say "наздраве" (nazdrave, cheers) and look the other person in the eye when you clink.

In summer, I swap the hot soup for tarator. It's cold, sharp with garlic and made with Bulgarian yoghurt, and on a 30-degree day in August it's the best thing on any menu in Sofia.

For the main course, the grill is the safe bet. Kebapche and kyufte come in twos or threes, usually with chips under grated white cheese, and at lunch locals drink ayran, the salted yoghurt drink, with them.

With the hot dishes, switch to wine. Mavrud, a dark red grape from the country around Plovdiv, is where I'd start with Bulgarian wine.

Eating out in Sofia: booking, paying and tipping

From Thursday to Saturday I book the folk-music mehanas, Moma, Manastirska Magernitsa and Cosmos, and aim for 20:00 at the mehanas so the band is just starting. Lunch and early-week dinners are walk-in almost everywhere.

Waiters don't bring the bill until you ask, so say "сметката, моля" (smetkata, molya, the bill please) or catch someone's eye. The rest of the Bulgarian phrases worth learning for a restaurant are "благодаря" (blagodarya, thank you) and "наздраве".

Most restaurants in central Sofia take cards, contactless included. Small mehanas, bakeries, kiosks and market stalls can be cash only, so I keep €20 in notes on me. Smoking is banned indoors, which is why the terraces fill with smokers, heated with patio lamps in winter.

The usual tip is about 10% for good table service. When paying by card, tell the waiter the total you want to pay, tip included, before they run the machine. In cafes and bars I round up or leave the coins, which is how tipping in Bulgaria works away from table service.

What a restaurant meal costs in Sofia

These are 2026 Sofia prices in euros for eating out, before the tip:

Dinner at Cosmos sits above every line of that table.