Where to eat in Sofia: local dishes, markets and neighborhoods

Match the meal to the time you have. A bakery counter covers breakfast in ten minutes; a mekhana lunch is the easy way to try several Bulgarian dishes in one sitting; the covered market is for buying cheese, lyutenitsa and spices to take away.

Bulgarian food in Sofia runs on fresh salads, white cheese (sirene), grilled minced meat and slow-cooked stews in clay pots, with Ottoman and Greek echoes. A meal usually opens with a salad and a small rakia, and the mekhana is the classic place to eat it.

Start with shopska salad: tomato, cucumber, pepper and onion under grated sirene. Tarator, a cold yoghurt soup with cucumber, dill, garlic and walnuts, is a summer dish. Banitsa, filo layered with egg and sirene, is the standard breakfast, eaten with ayran or boza. For grilled meat, order kebapche (spiced minced-meat sausage) and kyufte (the same mix as a patty).

For something cooked slowly, kavarma arrives in a clay pot, often topped with an egg, and mish-mash scrambles eggs with peppers, tomatoes and sirene. Chushki byurek is roasted pepper stuffed with cheese and egg, fried in batter. Finish with kiselo mlyako, thick yoghurt with honey and walnuts; Bulgarian yoghurt is a point of national pride.

Office workers at midday fill the mekhanas and grill counters a few streets off the main boulevards, where the same dishes cost less than on a central pedestrian street. Look for a lunch menu (obedno menyu) on a board outside: a soup, a main and bread for a set price is the cheapest full meal of the day.

Bakeries and banitsa stands do a steady morning trade near metro stations and bus stops, and small grill counters sell kebapche and kyufte by the piece into the evening. The covered market in the centre is where locals buy sirene, kashkaval, lyutenitsa and spices by weight; the same stalls sell prepared food to eat standing.

Residential districts are cheaper and quieter than the centre. If you are staying outside the middle, eat near where you sleep rather than travelling in for every meal.

Sofia is one of the cheaper capitals in the EU for food. A bakery breakfast, a sit-down lunch in a mekhana and a casual dinner all sit well below Western European prices, and the set lunch menu is the best value of the day. Alcohol, imported ingredients and central locations push the bill up.

Say 'nazdrave' when you toast and look the other person in the eye. Water is not brought automatically, so order a bottle. Bread is placed on the table and often appears on the bill as a separate line.

For vegetarian eating, salads, banitsa, mish-mash, bean soup and cheese-stuffed peppers all work; ask whether bean soup was made with meat stock. For vegan food, ask for 'postno' dishes, the Orthodox fasting style, which leaves out meat, dairy and eggs. Gluten-free awareness is limited because pies and bread dominate, so grills and salads are the safer order.

Carry some cash for small bakeries and market stalls. Tipping is modest: rounding up or leaving about ten percent is normal in sit-down places.