Cosmos Restaurant / Космос — Restaurant in Sofia City

For the fourth year in a row my partner and I went back to Cosmos, and it saddens me how much it has changed. It has been our tradition to dine here every summer since 2020 and for the first time we left immensely disappointed. A lot of things went wrong this time, so I listed them:

Starting off that they never confirmed our reservation, which I only realized an hour beforehand. We called to check and apparently it went through, they just never sent us the confirmation email. We ordered garlic bread, on which the waiter replied it was finished (at 8pm?!), and then one hour later we saw garlic bread being served to the table next to us. Previous years we ordered the tasting menu with wine pairing, which always made us leave extremely stuffed and slightly tipsy for less than 60 euros. However, this year they removed appetizers and downsized the courses, which made us leave still hungry for more than 75 euros per person (and we even ordered a ridiculous amount of additional bread, which cost a fortune too!) It was painstakingly obvious that the tasting menu portion sizes were smaller than the a-la-carte portions. The waiter did not explain the meals well at all and was mumbling constantly, giving a very mediocre explanation. They also put down the plates while talking, which was extremely distracting and afterwards they attempted to take away plates without us even being finished yet. These things I usually forgive, but not if raise your prices by such a huge amount in a year. We noticed a piece of plastic (!) in the dish and mentioned it to our main waiter, he said he will ask the kitchen. He showed it to the chef, but they both shrugged it off and they did not address it again to us. Once again very wrong behavior for the prices you’re asking. We get our dessert when we are informed this dish does not have a pairing, since it is good enough in flavor on its own... I am absolutely flabbergasted. Previous years we would get fancy homemade cocktails for each meal, this year all the pairings were basic domestic Bulgarian wines. AND THEN YOU EVEN SKIP A PAIRING? WITHOUT MENTIONING IT ANYWHERE?! What a scummy way to save money. Lastly, we get to the bill and I open the box. For the first time in my life, I see a “20% service charge” already included in Bulgaria. I was informed by my Bulgarian partner this is extremely uncommon and he also has never seen it before. So, in the end we left quite defeated without giving a tip, as the staff already did that for themselves.

I am happy I still have the videos and pictures of previous years, as we will probably will not be going back. The food was decent, but all domestic Bulgarian food, while for the price you would expect exotic important combinations. Like this they will unfortunately never get their Michelin star...

If you seek a Michelin star experience this is not recommended. Given the high pricing - especially for Sofia - the food and service does not stand up to it. The ATMOSHERE is of a cool modernist warehouse design true to a cosmic concept, yet a bit rough altought the seating (except for the bar) was comfortable. the lighting was too reflective on the menus making their reading tough. Since we only had 90 mins before the next booking, we started at the lower level main dinning area and 60 mins later we were moved to the front/upper level bar area, yet our table stayed empty for 75 mins, so we could had stayed and finished there. SERVICE : We lost some valuable time at the ordering as the menus (colors, structure, type face, set menus) were not well written, riddle based, (no sections for starters, mains, desserts) difficult to digest and a heavier "selling" of the set menus at the top. We had two waiters who tried to explain the menu, yet for such type of abstract innovative food, their English was not up to the task and they seemed annoyed, rolling their eyes when we kept asking questions. Our dinning experience was saved when we got a bar waitress to attend to us and then she (Plammena) kept serving us at the bar and she was very good, polite, helpful with good English skills FOOD: we had the 9 steps big bang meat menu and the 6 steps green planet menu, as we were not allowed to have the 9 steps menu for two. The menus were matched with the 4 steps Bulgarian wines (which were good). Some dishes were very good (ie tomatoes and katuk cheese, trout, chicken) others were a let down (ie the moussaka, the eggplant w lentils, the eggs dish, the calamari with XO sauce and prosciutto which was tasty but too salty). Overall eclectic dishes , unsure of Bulgarian roots, in a presentation to impress, yet flavours that do not really excite (the desserts are an exception,) , especially for the price (we paid 190 euros for 2!). I figured that if we had ordered the same dishes in larger portions a la carte, we ld had paid only 15 euros more, so I recommend the a la carte option, although paying 25 euros for a moussaka that is upside down with a torched bechamel sauce, yet blunt, is not recommended. Overall an unusual, edgy dinning experience that left us with a heart burn and very thirsty (excessive salt) yet a cosmic one, as the name implies. The basics are there but a focus is needed on less complexity, more taste, better service so as to do justice to the...

I've visited this place several times in the past, but I hadn't gone there in the last 2+ years, so I decided to visit it again, expecting the same high quality service and food I remember, but unfortunately they have severely dropped their quality.

The service was far from the quality I had in past years. The servers, while professional were simply too distracted and out of order, picking up half full glasses of cocktails from the table, while we were still waiting for dishes and at the same time leaving dirty dishes unpicked for very prolonged time.

The food itself was quite mediocre at best. To comment on the dishes I tried:

The duck hears. The were nicely made, maybe because it is very hard to go wrong here, but the decision to serve them in a plate full half-way through with grease was rather poor. The calamary. Not seasoned at all. The seasoning is reliant on the sauce and specifically on the prosciutto's saltines. If the calamary were drenched in that sauce maybe it would've worked, but when the sauce is complimentary then you get blatant and tasteless bites on your pallet frequently. The Ufka. Simply tasteless. I honestly have little comment on what can be improved here, aside from simply removing it from the menu altogether. The chicken. For a restaurant of this caliber was too dry. Chicken, while simple is one of the best showcasing of skills for any cook. The chocolate desert. It was not bad actually, although what I mostly tasted was the caramel in it - I would rename it "chocolate caramel", if anything else. Biscuit cake. Luckily this was the last thing that I tasted and it was at able to leave me with a good aftertaste, after the series of disappointments, considering it was the only thing I actually enjoyed. It was very light and balanced with everything on the plate complimenting each other.

Overall it was a disappointing experience costing upwards to 150 EUR with tip and leaving me a with a bad aftertaste. Not to mention that I left a tip separately, just by default, only to later find out I was charged an additional tip of around 20% in the main bill, which is something that I've experienced for the first time, in...