Shtastlivetsa Restaurant — Restaurant in Sofia City

I find this restaurant hard to rate, because we had a really up and down experience. I landed on 3.5 stars, so I rounded up.

First things first: The rich chocolate cake on the menu is DIVINE, so if you have any space for dessert, I recommend getting this delectable piece of chocolate-y goodness!

I also appreciated that the restaurant has a big selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes along with the more traditional fare. I shared the oriental salad as a starter with my partner, and we both liked it. For my main, I ordered the vegan garden meat balls, but unfortunately, I received the lentil and red beet meatballs (I understand sometimes things get lost in translation, but I pointed at the right item on the menu, and the waiter repeated it, so I think it was just a genuine mix-up). Weirdly, I also received the (wrong) main course at the same time as the starter. I considered not saying anything about the mix-up, because I didn‘t want to waste the food, but I just didn‘t like it (it was dry, had no sides or sauce, and I don‘t like red beets, which is why I had ordered something else). When we told the waiter, he wasn‘t particularly apologetic, and it seemed it was more of a chore than anything to replace it. He did apologize for the mix-up when he brought the right dish, but by that time my partner was basically already finished with his main dish (a chicken dish he enjoyed), so it did impact our experience quite a bit.

I do have to say the correct main dish I then ate was really good though! The „meat“ balls were seasoned perfectly, and so was the sauce they came with. It did really need some good bread (or rice or couscous or really any kind of side) to soak up the delicious sauce in my opinion, but the taste was genuinely great, and I would love to eat it again with a side (I did ask if it came with sides and was told it‘s enough as it is, so I was hoping for the nice looking flat bread the table next to us had, but alas).

The dessert, as I mentioned, was genuinely amazing. We ordered tea and a coffee drink to enjoy with it and both of these came much earlier than the cake, so again, the order and time of service could be improved.

The ambiance was very nice - elegant but still cozy enough to immediately feel at home, no notes there. If you want to go, I would definitely recommend making a reservation - we tried on Saturday night without a reservation and weren‘t lucky, but even on Sunday night when we came back with one it was...

A fine place where you can have some nice meals. Even that it is a bit overdecorated you can still get the feeling of cozy and friendly restaurant. Although the meals in the menu sound sophisticated they are somehow a bit far from what they aim to deliver. They are delicious but expectations are higher to meals that expensive. The service is good but not excellent. Staff is kind and helpful when it comes to choose what to order. Our waitress gave an alternative meal to almost everyone out of all 8 people that we were there. They also have an additional menu with seasonal meals which is quite a good idea. For dessert I recommend the biscuit cake. Another plus for this particular restaurant is that it has a parking. It is actually the underground parking of the housing complex that it situated in and I think, but I am not 100% sure, that it is free of charge for the customers. You can access it from Sheinovo street. If using the parking you'd better ask the waiters if you have to check or verify your parking ticket somehow. There was additional info in the menu about the parking but I cannot remember what it was. I would also recommend making a reservation if you are to go there on Friday or weekend's night. On overall I would say we were quite happy with our...

Been to a couple of restaurants, both in Sofia and V.Turnovo. The waiters have always been rather restrained, though the food is good to very good, guess it depends on the dishes or on which of the restaurants one will pick. Last time (I think it was the end of september) we (2 of us) went to the restaurant at San Stefano street, had a salad and a main course (two dishes in total). We paid for this modest supper, which cost about thirty and some leva(it's also kind of expensive there, but there's no secret about that) and waited for the change, the waitress returned it saying "thank you". When we opened it we saw that she, without any permission decided to tip herself on our behalf with more than 10 percent of the check. That amazed the both of us, because here in Bulgaria the tip is not obligatory and people decide whether and how much to tip for the service and second - the tip she decided to take from us was more than the tip in the countries where tipping is actually mandatory. I do not think she deserved it after serving two people a dish and nothing more. I feel so offended that I'm not going to visit any of the...