What to Eat in Varna
Varna (Варна in Bulgarian) is the third largest city in Bulgaria and the capital of its Black Sea coast. Most visitors head here for the golden beaches, but Varna is also a great city to eat your way through. Every day I stumbled on another market, bakery or restaurant with a proper grill.
Markets in Varna
If you want to understand what Bulgarians really eat, start at the markets. The central farmers market in Varna is open seven days a week, and its covered aisles are full of fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs and foraged rosehips. Around the edges you'll find bakeries, shops with pickled vegetables and stalls selling sirene cheese. Just bring cash - the markets don't take cards.
Tucked away at the edge of the farmers market is the only fish market in Varna. It's easy to miss, tucked in between the buildings, but the selection of sea and freshwater fish from the Black Sea is worth hunting down.
The place I grew fondest of was the Blue Market - or rather its "grandmothers' alley". Around the main covered section, grandmothers set up their own tiny stalls and sell eggs, herbs and whatever their gardens give them, from morning till evening. I came to Varna in October, outside the main season, so not all the stalls in the market hall were even occupied - but it was the grandmothers' alley that kept drawing me back as I wandered the city, if only for a bag of fresh jujubes, or Chinese dates.
It's worth stopping at one of the bakeries near the markets, too. In one of them I discovered crisp buttery kurabiiki cookies, and right next to them dense soldiers' cookies made to an old recipe. Both keep for weeks, so they also make a fine Bulgarian food souvenir.
What to Eat in Varna
- Black Sea fish. Varna sits right on the sea and the fresh catch - fried goby, horse mackerel (safrid), tsatsa sprats or a big turbot (kalkan) - belongs on the local table just as much as the grill does. And where better to buy it than at the city's only fish market?
- Fish soup. A thick broth full of fish is a fixture of restaurants all along the Varna coast. It often comes with a hot sauce and a wedge of lemon so you can sharpen the flavor to your own taste.
- Shopska salad. The best known Bulgarian salad has more to do with Varna than you'd think: according to a widely repeated version, cooks from the state-run Balkanturist organization put it together in the 1950s at the seaside resort of Druzhba just outside Varna, today's Saints Constantine and Helena.
- Varnenski churek. A savory yeast bread found mainly in this part of the country. Once baked, it gets brushed with fat and sprinkled with sharena sol, the colorful Bulgarian spice mix.
- … and possibly a few dozen more Bulgarian dishes from the list: What to Eat in Bulgaria.
Where to Eat in Varna
- Staria Chinar. A chain of some five restaurants serving honest Bulgarian cooking - and my sure bet whenever I'm looking for a meal in Varna. I had the "butcher's board" here with one of the best pork steaks I've ever eaten, and beautifully plated potato balls stuffed with smoked cheese. The menu is in English and I've never needed a reservation. My tip is the branch on Tsaribrod Street, which draws mainly locals.
- Key beer bar. A bar with 26 beers on tap near the center, right across from the Blue Market. Order the tasting flight of small beers from Bulgarian craft breweries - the bartender writes the names down so you can order your favorite again. Out on the terrace, one of the local cats may well keep you company.
- Kramer patisserie. A well-reviewed patisserie where I tried garash chocolate cake - and it won me over, even though I'm usually more of a savory person. The local take on apple strudel was excellent too.
I'm certain you won't go hungry in Varna. Fresh fish, a perfect grill and markets full of local produce convinced me I'll be back.
Enjoy eating your way around Varna!
Staria Chinar: Bulgarian Cooking Where Varna's Locals Eat
In Varna I ate at almost the same place every single time - the Staria Chinar chain, named after a real hundred-year-old plane tree that still stands over its first restaurant. Five restaurants in the city, a charcoal grill, and the branch on Tsaribrod Street where I never once met another foreigner. And a pork steak, one of the best I've ever eaten.
Pleskavica: The Balkan Grilled Ground Meat Patty
Pleskavica is a large, flat patty of ground beef and pork with onion, grilled over charcoal. It comes from Serbia, where the southern town of Leskovac protects it as a trademark and grills a record-breaking one for the whole city every summer, and it's eaten across the former Yugoslavia. Bulgaria borrowed it along with its foreign name and sells it as Serbian without a hint of embarrassment.
Shopska Salad: The Bulgarian Salad with Grated Sirene
Shopska salad is the best-known Bulgarian salad: finely diced tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and onion under a layer of grated salty sirene, in the colors of the Bulgarian flag. It passes for a traditional dish, though it has little claim to the title - it was put together in the 1950s by the chefs of the state enterprise Balkantourist for tourists on the Black Sea, and it took its name from a mountain region where tomatoes never grew.
Katak: A Bulgarian Spread of Roasted Peppers and Cheese
Katak is a Bulgarian spread of soured milk and salty sirene cheese with finely chopped roasted pepper and garlic. On the menu it sits among the salads, but you eat it with bread as a starter alongside rakija. It takes its name from an old Rhodope dairy product that aged in a clay pot down a well; today's restaurant version is made in half an hour in the fridge.
Snezhanka: Bulgarian Yogurt Salad with Cucumber and Walnuts
Snezhanka is a Bulgarian cold salad of strained sour milk, cucumber, garlic and dill, topped with crushed walnuts. It is named after Snow White for its white color, and Bulgarians call it dry tarator. The state enterprise Balkantourist gave it its present form in the late 1970s, just as it did with Shopska salad.
Garash: A Bulgarian Walnut and Chocolate Cake
Garash is a Bulgarian layer cake of thin sheets of ground walnuts, egg whites and sugar, layered with a filling of heavy cream and chocolate and covered with a glossy chocolate glaze. It was invented by Kosta Garash, a confectioner from Austria-Hungary, at his hotel in Ruse; today every patisserie in the country sells it, and in Varna you'll find it at Kramer patisserie too.
Rhomphaia Restaurant: A Fish Lunch Under a Thracian Sword in Balchik
Rhomphaia is a fish restaurant on the waterfront of Balchik in Bulgaria, named after the two-handed sword of the Thracian infantry. Instead of war history it serves Black Sea classics: a hearty fish chorba with hot sauce and lemon, and small fried fish called popcheta. Lunch with a sea view in a town that spent 27 years as part of Romania.
The Key Beer Bar: A Little Key to Bulgarian Beer in Varna
The Key Beer Bar - Ключето in Bulgarian, literally "the little key" - pours 26 beers by the Blue Market in Varna, from Bulgarian microbreweries to Guinness and Starobrno. If the list leaves you lost, there's a tasting set of six small beers, with the bartender writing the names down beside each glass. Add house-made spicy chips, a terrace on the sidewalk and the cats: Varna is home to more than 23,000 of them.
Varna Farmers Market: The Central Market Locals Call Kolhozen Pazar
The central market in Varna, which locals call Kolhozen pazar, is the biggest market in the city: covered lanes of fruit, vegetables and herbs, a fish market inside and bakeries and sirene cheese shops around the edge. Plus three names for one market, labels boasting pink tomatoes and the reason you'll want cash on you.
The Blue Market in Varna: The Market by the Clock and Grandmothers' Alley
The Blue Market in Varna is a small municipal market in the center of town, by the cathedral and the town clock. Its official name is Chasovnika, its nickname came from the blue tables put in during a modernization, and beyond the fruit and vegetables on the tables, its real life happens on the sidewalk around it, where grandmothers sell eggs, herbs, walnuts and hinap, the fruit foreigners call Chinese dates.