Sofia has many restaurants where you can sit, spend hours, and eat well. The city center is transitioning from an office center to a tourist center, with airlines delivering thousands of tourists every day. Consequently, as offices relocate from the center, restaurants witness a shift in their clientele from regular locals to ever-changing tourists. When a guest asks for a recommendation, we tend to send them to the slow and expensive places for the best experience. The reality is that it’s not where we eat. It’s more likely that you’ll find a Bulgarian having lunch at KFC or Pizza Lab than any of those traditional recommendations.

So here is my list of places where I actually like eating. All are either fast food or close to that. They’re ordered by importance, high to low.

• Beshamel – a chain of small restaurants with cooked food. It’s fast food but not junk food. The kitchen is central so the food is the same at all of the places. Most of the meals are not far from what my parents would cook
• BDS – a chain of fast food kufte/kebapche places. You can have Shkembe and Shopska Salad or the menu with 2 kebapche and experience the true Bulgarian cuisine
• Ikigai – an okay Bulgarian edition of Japanese-style food. If you want ramen though, Umamido is a better choice.
• Fabrika Daga – I eat sandwiches there but they have ordinary food. The food is hipster, with a lot of taste in everything. I enjoy that and am a frequent customer
• Satsanga – the only vegetarian food I enjoy eating. It would be my top contender for the most delicious food in Sofia
• Ribs Brothers – what the title says

There’s nothing wrong with places like Shtastlivetza, Mediterraneo, Pod Lipite, Victoria, Happy and so on that get traditionally recommended to visitors. However, all the places where I go are quick, you pay, get your food, eat, and leave. The food is fine.

I’d normally not take photos of my lunch but found these two, featuring Ribs Brothers and Beshamel.