Restaurant "Staria Chinar" — Restaurant in Sofia City

Delightful place where we enjoyed our first meal in Bulgaria. Great food and nice ambiance. We did not have reservations but many others did. They have an English menu but appropriately they mainly speak Bulgarian, staff made great effort to carefully make sure we got what we needed, so nice of them. From outside on the street, you will not see a sign “Staria Chinar” but look carefully you’ll see that the menu posted outside says that, so, easy to find the place. They have sort of a hunting / game / deer theme which we liked. For example the plates, menus , door handles, decorations. My wife loved that they had well prepared beef brain with a yummy mayo/garlic sauce, which was panko breaded and fried, I tried it and it tasted great (best brain I’ve ever had 😂). Also tried the Snezhanka (Snow White salad, yogurt based) which is pretty local we read, and loved it. Mezze platter was meaty (listed 4 items but had 5) and good, a chance to try several sausages etc that we don’t often/ever see. One of the mezze items seemed to be thinly sliced fat at room temperature with paprika (not sure, fun to eat new stuff you cannot exactly identify) which was the only thing that we we did not like too well but interesting to try. I loved my cooked venison in a pot, to us a bit too sweet due to plums and little tiny raisin like things that were tiny and not shriveled, some discussion among us about what those exactly were. But all great. We liked our wine and please do order ice cream as the serving is fun (see video). I tried some pear brandy and re-confirmed I personally am not a brandy guy, it was not bad though. Careful note: the ice cream seemed to both of us (independent conclusions) to taste like peanuts but maybe we’re wrong, but I checked and the fancy menu euro-coding about warnings / “contains” did not identify that the ice cream had peanuts. We did not ask because we are blessed with no allergies and inquiring when we cannot speak Bulgarian would be laborious, however, looks like anyone with serious allergies should not make any assumptions and should always inquire, we’ve all read about deathly reactions to peanuts not being disclosed etc. But no issue for us at all, and maybe the flavoring was not peanut or something artificial. We loved this place....

The best dinner we had in Sofia! This is seriously Michelin star level food. I had the beef tongue with celery puree, it had a beautiful sauce with mushrooms that was absolutely perfect for the extra cold weather. My husband had the pork shank, which melted like butter on his tongue. Our drink of choice was the house Rakia, which is made from apricots. It smells exactly like sweet, juicy apricots. Whoever made this Rakia is seriously talented, and I'm not even usually a fan of stronger alcohol. This was the perfect drink for a perfect dinner. For dessert we took the caramel cream (flan?) and some local green tea and herb tea, and then we also got a surprise complementary cherie that was probably made in heaven. It was perfect. This was the best dinner not just in Sofia, but in my entire life, probably. We both wanted to cry with happiness with every bite. We aren't religious, but I think this is the closest we've ever been to God.

Not any less important was the service, which elevated an already perfect dinner to another dimension in space. Katy was absolutely amazing. Boss, if you're reading this please give her a good bonus! Employees like Katy are what makes a business prosper.

I also have a separate message to Katy personally: we talked about perfumes briefly, I recommend you try Mugler's "Angel Fantasm" and "Angel Stellar" (on the sweeter side) and "Womanity" (on the fresh side). These are relatives of what I had on today (Mugler's "Angel eau Croisiere" 2020 edition, which was a limited edition, so it's unfortunately hard to find nowadays). Thank...

I wanted to rate this higher, but there were a few small things which impacted my experience more than I'd like.

The environment is nice, spacious, and the seats are comfy. Staff were helpful and friendly, service was pretty quick for a large group.

In terms of the food, the salad starter I had was fresh and the main tasted great. Good quality overall.

However, the starters were also provided with bread; this turned out to be dry, tough, and not accompanied by any butter or lyutenitsa at the very least. It later also appeared toasted, and I really don't understand why this wasn't fresh, as it was just like eating crackers.

The price of the food, in some aspects, left something to be desired. I understand that this is the center, but the salads need to be tweaked in this sense. I was happy to pay 20+lv for venison, but it needed more accompaniments to feel truly worth it.

Whilst the taste of the main was great, mine and some others were served on massive plates. So, your first impression is one of disappointment that you food appears, at least, small.

Although the staff were nice, myself and others had to prompt them to take our empty dishes away. This shouldn't really be the case, especially on a quiet evening like this was.

Overall not a bad experience, but one I think that could be improved for...