La Branche - Food | Bar | Garden — Restaurant in Sofia City

The atmosphere is pleasant. It is located in the heart of Sofia. The garden is truly magical. Despite everything, I probably wouldn't come again for several reasons: The tablecloth was dirty (absolutely unacceptable for this class of restaurant) We ordered a garden tomato salad with burrata, cherry tomatoes and basil pesto, got arugula instead of the cherry tomatoes. We waited more than 40 min for main dishes (the waiter apologized for the delay, the reason was that there’s only one chef in the kitchen) - at the same time, the next table was constantly served dishes (probably because there was a celebrity 🙂) FYI, Only 3 or 4 tables were occupied in the entire restaurant! From the main courses, I chose a chicken steak with mozzarella, olives and side salad (costs BGN 18.99) - before ordering, I asked the waiter if the meat was chicken fillet or chicken leg - he answered that it was panko-breaded chicken fillet with cheddar, garnish gnocchi with cheese - they don’t have THE chicken from the menu.

At the next table (with the celeb) we randomly saw that they were having the exact chicken with mozzarella that I wanted, and that I’ve been told they didn't have it (they must have been served the last portion 😀) In the bill was stated as a "Choice Menu” and the price was higher, 25 BGN. However, I can confirm that the dish was really tasty. The other people I was with, had a beef burger and fried calamari (we waited the longest for the calamari!) They said they were happy with the food. The tiramisu and panna cotta were okay but nothing fascinating.

👉🏻 So basically, we left with mixed feelings from this place, but we all share the same opinion that this place is not...

This place was highly-rated on Google Maps so decided to give a visit. I showed up on Sunday afternoon, and it was a sunny afternoon in the courtyard area with just two other people there. This suited me fine, as I wanted to do some journalling. The service was slow given there were only two other people, but I wasn't in a rush and didn't mind. I ordered the honey-mustard chicken with a side of peppers. It took ~20 minutes to arrive, but looked great and tasted good. It took a while to get a waiter's attention again for the bill, but again not the worst thing in the world as I wasn't in a rush. The food was pretty expensive, but the dish had been decently fancy so it was fine-ish.

A half hour later I started feeling a bit of upset in my stomach. Over the next few hours, this progressed to full-on diarrhea and food poisoning that had me bedridden for two days, and with a continued upset stomach until now (Thursday). I don't know what it was - perhaps salmonella from the chicken not being cooked thoroughly? - but I definitely expected more from a restaurant of this price range. Would not...

I came to the place with a friend, we were after a week-long scientific conference. We had a long transfer in Sofia, so we got on the metro and the directions on Google led us here. It was after 11am and we had about an hour to get an early lunch and get back to the airport. The waiter assured us they were open so we sat down. He offered us something to drink, although he didn't even bother to take the menu. He brought juices and disappeared. After 15 minutes of waiting, I asked if we could see the menu and the waiter told that the kitchen only opened at 12... I commented that he could have told us, to which he did not reply. Treating the customer in advance, although it seemed like a...