I’ll be honest, I didn’t know quite what to expect from Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital city but within minutes of arriving I could feel Sofia’s independent soul. Eastern European capitals can surprise you in either direction. Some feel hollowed out by decades of history, others pulse with something you didn’t see coming. Sofia surprised me. From the moment I started walking, I felt it. A city very much alive on its own terms, busy becoming something, and not particularly interested in whether you’d noticed.
Independent bookshops. Tiny cafés with handwritten menus. Vintage stores next to florists. Everywhere I turned, there was evidence of a city building its own identity from the ground up. Not for tourists, but for itself. That, I find, is always the best kind.
Sofia’s Café Culture and First Impressions: 369 Speciality Coffee & Bakery
We came straight from the airport on the metro, and our first stop in Sofia over lunch set the tone for everything that followed. 369 Speciality Coffee & Bakery is the kind of place that makes you exhale. Cosy seating, genuinely lovely staff, and coffee that was exquisitely crafted. The sort of cup that tells you immediately that this city takes the whole thing seriously.
We tried their famous crème brûlée cinnamon bun and a cardamom bun, both very good, a perfectly pleasant introduction to the city. It was really the coffee and the atmosphere that made it… that warm, unhurried feeling of somewhere that knows exactly what it is. Arriving somewhere new and landing, on your very first stop, in a place this welcoming: that is a gift.
Babka, Bakeries and the Rhythm of the City: Babka Coffee & Buns
The second morning brought Babka Coffee & Buns, and it was everything a morning should be. A family establishment with real care woven into every detail. You feel it the moment you walk in. We ordered the Babka Banitsa, a Bulgarian cheese pastry, and it was, quite simply, out of this world. Paired with a lovingly made flat white, it was the kind of breakfast that makes you want to sit quietly for a while and just be grateful.
Around Babka, the neighbourhood rewards a slow wander. A handful of small restaurants, a water fountain where locals pause, a Lidl tucked in without apology. Nothing performative. Just a street getting on with its day.
A City That Takes Its Coffee Seriously
What struck me across both visits, and indeed across the whole trip, was Sofia’s quiet confidence around coffee. Not the homogenised, international kind, but the genuinely individual kind. Each place with its own character, its own light, its own regulars.
Nowhere embodied this more disarmingly than Fox Book Café — part bookstore, part cultural centre, entirely itself. An old Underwood typewriter sat on the wooden table beside our flat whites as though it had always been there, a chandelier glittered overhead, and a fox curled contentedly around an open book in a mural on the outside wall, as if marking the threshold between the ordinary street and something slower and more considered within.
There is something deeply civilised about a city that invests in the cosy corner, the well-chosen chair, the cup that arrives without rush. Sofia has this in abundance.
The March of Women in Sofia: Mothers, Women, and the Street in Full Voice
I happened to be in Sofia on the 8th of March, and what unfolded was one of those unexpected gifts that travel occasionally drops in your path. In Bulgaria, International Women’s Day and Mothers’ Day are one and the same. The city marked it with full-throated enthusiasm.
Flowers everywhere. In shop windows, in people’s arms, offered at street stalls with the casual generosity of a city that means it. A march and protest moved through the streets with energy and colour, not angry, not small, but present and determined. Women celebrated, honoured, and heard.
I watched for a while, phone put away, just taking it in. There are moments in travel that remind you why you go. This was one of them.
Last Evening: Eddie Sicoy and the Case for Trusting Your Instincts
On our final evening, with a late flight at 23:25 still a few hours away, we set out for one last drink on Vitosha Boulevard. We stumbled first into a sports bar. The barman stood with arms folded, answered in curt monosyllables, and radiated the specific energy of someone who would very much prefer you hadn’t come in. We were out within moments.
And then we found Eddie Sicoy, and all was well with the world.
Cosy corners. Warm bar staff. A genuinely lovely atmosphere and a great selection of beers. We ordered a Bulgarian beer from Burgas, cold, refreshing, exactly right, and settled in with the quiet satisfaction of people who trusted their instincts and were rewarded for it. There is always a hidden gem if you keep looking. Eddie Sicoy was ours.
Where We Stayed: Art Hotel 158
A word about our base for the trip, because it deserves one. Art Hotel 158 is a three-star hotel that punches well, well above its weight. The staff were lovely, the welcome genuine, and the building itself is a quietly remarkable thing. A five-year renovation project, documented in a gallery of photographs displayed up the staircase all the way to the fifth floor. Walking up each morning was like reading the story of a building finding itself again.
There is a gallery space, a bistro, and a basement rock bar. Not in the least bit pretentious, despite having every reason to be. It is the kind of place that has been made with genuine care and wears that care lightly. If you are heading to Sofia, I would not hesitate to recommend it.
A City Doing Things Its Own Way
Sofia had exceeded my expectations before I had fully formed them. It is a city that doesn’t shout for your attention. It simply gets on with being itself, warmly and confidently, and invites you to join in if you’d like.
The independent spirit is real and it is thriving. In the bookshops. In the bakeries. In the streets full of flowers on a March morning. In the bars where strangers become easy company.
I left with babka crumbs on my coat and the very strong feeling I would be back.
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