The Best Cocktail Bars in Sofia: My 10 Favourites

Sofia's best cocktails are mixed in basements and on side streets, and even a very good one costs less than I'd pay in London. These are the 10 cocktail bars I send friends to, including two speakeasies with doors you have to find, plus the streets they cluster on, what a round costs in euros and the route I'd follow for one big night.

My 10 favourite cocktail bars in Sofia at a glance

This is the table I'd send a friend before they land, with the address a taxi driver will need.

The best cocktail bars in Sofia

5L and Hambara sit further down with the speakeasies, because getting in is half the night.

Sputnik Cocktail Bar

If you only have time for one cocktail bar in Sofia, make it Sputnik. It opened on 1 September 2015 on Yanko Sakazov Boulevard, beside Zaimov Park, and it goes all in on the space race: honeycomb carpet on the walls, cosmonaut posters, retro fridges and, on some nights, staff in space suits. It serves coffee by day, turns into a cocktail bar in the evening and has DJs at weekends.

The menu has its own rakia section, and that's where I order from. Plamena mixes grape rakia with mezcal, and Kuma Lisa is the other rakia drink I'd try. Cocktails cost about €8 to €12. Raketa Rakia Bar, one of my favourite bars in Sofia for straight rakia, is right next door, so you can taste the spirit neat at one and mixed at the other.

The Cocktail Bar

The Cocktail Bar has been mixing drinks on Angel Kanchev Street since 2013, which makes it one of the older names in the city. The menus change with the seasons and lean on fresh ingredients, preparations made in-house and some experimental flavours.

Gin and tonic has been its speciality for years, and this is the one bar in Sofia where I order a G&T over anything clever. I like it as the first stop of an evening, straight after a walk down the boulevard.

3 oz. Bar

3 oz. Bar has no cocktail menu. Three bartenders opened it in 2019 at Vasil Levski Boulevard 3. You tell them what you like, order at the bar and watch your drink being made. The soundtrack is funk, hip hop and jazz, and the kitchen serves food, so you can stay put for the evening.

It's open daily from 18:00 to 02:00, and tables can be booked online, which I'd do for a weekend. This is where I send friends who say they don't like cocktails, because their drink starts from whatever they usually order.

Phi Cocktail Bar

Phi sits at Tsar Shishman 24, with modern art on the walls and a menu sorted into four geometric families, running from straight-lined aperitifs to long, fizzy spirals. The shapes work as a map: pick the one that matches your mood and you'll land close to the drink you want.

Phi takes walk-ins only, and it pairs well with 5L, a short walk down Shishman, for the next drink.

One More Bar

One More Bar, at Tsar Shishman 12, opens as a cafe at 8.30am and turns into a cocktail bar in the evening, staying open until 2am. The inside is colourful and a bit playful, the crowd is young and creative, and in summer I want a seat on the terrace.

It was one of the first bars in Sofia to put organic and vegan cocktails on the menu. The specials change with the season, there's mulled wine in winter, and cocktails cost about €8 to €10. It's the bar on this list I'd pick for a morning coffee too.

Bar Me

Bar Me is tiny and theatrical, and it's the most fun bar on this list to walk into. It's inside the Central Military Club building on Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard, through a small side entrance on Rakovski Street, and the room is a bird lover's den: bird illustrations, taxidermy and green-tinted walls.

Some drinks arrive in bowls of smoke, the house specials change with the season, and the Hemingway daiquiri is the classic I'd order. Cocktails cost about €10 to €14, and with so few seats I book for the weekend.

Sense Hotel Rooftop Bar

For one drink with a view, I go up to the rooftop of the Sense Hotel at Tsar Osvoboditel 16. The panoramic windows slide back, and the view runs across the rooftops to the gold domes of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

Cocktails here cost €12 to €16 on the rooftop's own menu, the dearest on this list, so I have one at sunset and move on. Smart casual is the safer choice at the door, and I book a table on +359 884 544 108, the rooftop number listed on the Sense Hotel website. Of all the rooftop bars in Sofia, this is the one I take visitors to.

Magic Bar

Magic Bar calls itself the first magic bar in Sofia, and it's my pick for a night that needs an icebreaker. It's at Otets Paisiy 51, magicians do close-up tricks at the tables while you drink, and cocktails cost about €8 to €12.

It opens on Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 17:00, with a show at 20:00 on each of those nights, and the programme also has free stand-up comedy open mic nights. Show tickets sell on the Magic Bar website, where a pass for two costs €30. Some shows are in Bulgarian, so ask which night is in English when you book.

Speakeasy bars in Sofia

Sofia's speakeasy scene is small, and the two I'd send you to are about as far apart as bars get: 5L for a serious cocktail, Hambara for a beer by candlelight. Bar Me's side door on Rakovski Street gives you a taste of the same feeling with less effort.

5L Speakeasy

5L, at Tsar Shishman 15, claims to be Sofia's first modern speakeasy. The door is the fun part. It's covered in numbered keys, only one opens it, and the clue involves today's date. Stand there long enough looking puzzled and a member of staff will appear to help.

Inside, you go down into a basement styled on a 1920s Prohibition bar. There are two levels, and the lower one is darker and better for a quiet drink. The drink to order is the Belegzija, made with rakia, and the bartenders will make you something off the menu if you ask. The bar also takes part in Negroni Week, and it packs out at weekends, so I book for a Friday or Saturday.

Hambara

Hambara (Хамбара, "the barn") was a speakeasy long before the word caught on in Sofia. It's at 6-ti Septemvri 22, down a dark alley behind a graffiti-covered residential building, to an unmarked wooden door: knock, and wait to be let in. There's no electricity, the only light comes from candles, and the story goes that writers and artists hid out here under communism to talk freely.

It opens Monday to Saturday from around 21:00 until 03:00. Drinks are beer, wine, rakia and simple mixed drinks at €3 to €5, so I come for the room and order a rakia. It's where most of my big nights in Sofia end.

Where the cocktail bars are in Sofia

Most of the list sits east of Vitosha Boulevard, in the Sredets and Oborishte districts, and you can walk between the central bars in under 15 minutes.

Tsar Shishman Street

Tsar Shishman is a narrow street of small shops, cafes and low old buildings in the centre, and it's where I'd base a cocktail night if I only had one. One More Bar, 5L and Phi are all on it, at numbers 12, 15 and 24, a few minutes' walk apart.

Zaimov Park and Oborishte

Sputnik and Raketa sit side by side on Yanko Sakazov Boulevard, on the edge of Zaimov Park in Oborishte, east of the centre. It's a leafy, residential corner, and Zaimov is one of the parks in Sofia I'd walk through on a summer evening before the first drink.

Around Vitosha Boulevard and Rakovski Street

The Cocktail Bar on Angel Kanchev is a couple of minutes from Vitosha Boulevard, Sofia's pedestrian high street, which runs from the Palace of Justice down to NDK. Bar Me's door is on Rakovski Street, and the Sense Hotel is on Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard, the same road as the Military Club, so the rooftop and Bar Me pair up easily on foot.

Rakia cocktails: the Bulgarian drink to order

Rakia is Bulgaria's fruit brandy, usually made from grapes or plums and around 40% in a shop bottle, and Sofia's better bartenders now build cocktails on it. Of the bars on this list, Sputnik and 5L do the most with it, and at 3 oz. you can ask for a rakia drink built to your taste.

I'd order at least one rakia cocktail on a trip, because you won't find many at home. Try the spirit neat too, the way Bulgarians drink it: chilled, sipped slowly, often with a shopska salad, and never knocked back as a shot. Nectar on Iskar Street, one of the wine bars in Sofia I like most, pours natural wine and mixes cocktails too, which suits a group split between the two.

How much a cocktail costs in Sofia

On this list, cocktails run from about €8 at One More Bar, Sputnik and Magic Bar to €14 at Bar Me and 5L and €16 at the hotel rooftop. Four cocktails over a night come to €32 to €64, depending on where you drink them.

A cocktail is the priciest glass you'll order here, and of all the prices in Sofia it's the one that comes closest to home.

My one-night cocktail route in Sofia

This is the Friday night I'd plan for a friend on a weekend in Sofia: a view, dinner, two cocktail bars on one street and a candlelit nightcap.

I book dinner at one of my favourite restaurants in Sofia near Vitosha Boulevard, and from there every stop is a walk. If you'd rather start the night with a crowd, the Original Sofia Pub Crawl meets at the Palace of Justice at 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays for €21.

On a night that ends with dancing, I swap Hambara for one of the clubs in Sofia and keep the candlelit rakia for another night.

Practical tips for Sofia's cocktail bars

Booking. On a weeknight I walk in almost everywhere. On Friday and Saturday, 5L, Sputnik and Bar Me fill up, so I book those, and Magic Bar needs a show ticket bought ahead.

Cards and cash. Most cocktail bars take cards, but a few smaller bars prefer cash, so I carry €20 to €30 in notes.

What to wear. Jeans and a decent top are fine everywhere except the Sense rooftop, where I'd go smart casual.

Timing. Most of these bars are mixing cocktails by early evening and close around 2am. They fill up after 21:00, so an early drink at 19:00 gets you the best seat.

English. Most bartenders in these bars speak good English, so ordering off-menu is easy.

Getting home. The metro stops around midnight. After that I call one of the big taxi firms in Sofia or book through an app, and I never get into a car that pulls up and offers.