Five Sofia bakeries worth following your nose to
Fresh bread, warm pastries and a very good excuse to stop
If sweet things and pastries are your secret guilty pleasure,
you’re in the right place. We find it hard enough to walk past the smell of fresh bread, biscuits or pancakes. Resisting a bite is harder still, especially at these Sofia favourites. Good ingredients, care and a feel for flavour make each bakery in this selection worth seeking out. If you haven’t worked your way through their counters yet, consider this a nudge.
This is the sort of place your nose finds before you do. It smells of butter and a kind of comfort you can’t quite put into a recipe. The bakery opened in 2018, built on a long friendship, nearly 18 years of experience and plenty of travel in pursuit of good bread.
The great love here is the sourdough starter, tended almost like a child.
It’s what gives the loaves their character. Everything is made by hand, with care and good ingredients. Add wholemeal bread, ice cream and biscuit cake and you have more than enough reason to stop at Bake a Wish. That fresh-baking smell now leads to two addresses: one in Dianabad, the other in Hadzhi Dimitar.
10 Sv. Pimen Zografski Street, Dianabad
26 Vasil Kanchev Street, Hadzhi Dimitar
+359 886 836 272
At Claire, dough is a love language. Lately, it’s been speaking fluent cookie. After plenty of testing, kneading and sweet experiments, five flavours have made the cut. They come in a handsome box, ready to share, give as a present or keep for a little of everything.
Two Belgian chocolate options, cheesecake with homemade raspberry jam,
lemon with poppy seeds and white chocolate, banana with walnuts... And that’s just the start, with more seasonal recipes and surprises to come. Elsewhere in the display are French croissants, banitsa, sourdough loaves and the éclairs we keep coming back for.
139 Vitosha Boulevard
+359 896 895 601
You can walk in for a little something and walk out with an idea for an entire party. Co-Co sweet and more has spent 12 years giving sweet things a sense of occasion. Bespoke and wedding cakes share the counter with tarts, pies, muffins and other bakes. The savoury side makes an equally good case for itself, with quiches, galettes and grissini.
Good wine finds the right company here,
and the catering service takes care of private celebrations, corporate occasions, business breakfasts and coffee breaks. Behind it all is a team of pastry chefs, cake decorators and cooks for whom good ingredients and attention to detail are part of the recipe.
5 Lachezar Stanchev Street, Sopharma Business Towers
+359 885 500 566
www.cocosweetandmore.com
A little French city chic in the heart of Sofia? Pourquoi pas? Le Soleil has that easy French way of bringing good food, coffee and the pleasure of taking your time together. There are sweet crêpes with five varieties of Belgian Callebaut chocolate, alongside traditional Breton galettes:
savoury buckwheat pancakes made with French flour and French cheeses.
Add speciality coffee, quiet jazz and a little romance and you’re somewhere between Paris and Brittany. Outside, Sofia is watching the clock. In here, time would rather order another coffee. A little France, a lot of Le Soleil.
186 Georgi S. Rakovski Street
+359 892 030 219
www.lesoleilcafe.com
The bread here is in no hurry. That’s rather the point. Ivan Grahovski founded VazDuh in 2019 with the aim of making bread that would leave you feeling light, satisfied and ready for the day. It starts with ancient grain varieties from Bulgarian growers, freshly stone-milled. Then come the live sourdough starter, alkaline water and a full 16 hours of fermentation. A gentle bake at a low temperature produces a soft, moist, nourishing loaf. Alongside the bread are low-carb snacks, keto crackers made with fermented seeds and raw seed pastes. More time and thought in every slice. And a little air, of course: that’s what VazDuh means.
137 Tsar Boris III Boulevard
+359 876 199 325
www.airbakery1.com
Four places that put speciality coffee first
What’s happening in the city? Follow GoGuide on Instagram to hear about it first.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for a closer look at the city, and a wider view.
