Cucina e mangia con un locale a Sofia

Wonderful local experience! It’s as much abo learning about every day life in Sofia as it is about cooking.

First Beni took us to a local butcher and vegetable stand. Then Beni did a great job of teaching us how to make Moussaka, a traditional Bulgarian dish. Beni accommodated my wife’s allergies to Wheat and Dairy. While the dish was baking Beni showed us pictures and explained some of the history of Bulgaria. The best part you get to eat what you cook, so come hungry.

My wife and I were looking for something fun and enriching to do when we arrived in Sofia before heading to Pleven. We were overwhelmed by all the choices on Viator but we knew we wanted to learn more about Bulgarian culture and the food so we chose this over the walking tours. I'm so glad we booked this tour with our hosts. We were met at the Alexander Nevsky cathedral in the center of the city where meeting up with our host was super easy. We had a good conversation where we walked to a local grocery store and back to their apartment. All together the walk was about 15 minutes and we saw some beautiful architecture on the way. The shopping experience was cool and Beni made us comfortable enough to ask any questions that I had like 'why is there so many different types of cheese here?' or 'does everyone use recyclable bags?'. It might sound trivial but being able to have a 1-on-1 conversation helped us better understand a world greatly different from ours where just about all our shopping is done in big-box stores. Next we went up her apartment and met up with her sister and Mrs. Gretta (who I found out is quite a celebrity). Our hosts were amazing and we felt right at home as if we were catching up with some friends. The entire time we were welcomed to ask any questions we had and Beni and Betty introduced us to a lot of things important to them and to their culture. The cooking lessons and enjoying the meal afterwards was truly an amazing experience, but we took away so much more from this whole experience. Their apartment was cozy, centrally located in the city, and had a view of the famous cathedral that would make people jealous. The hosts for this event are passionate about what they do and wanted us to make the most of our visit. They shared their knowledge as a walking-tour guide to tell is the best places to see after the event ended and to walk off some of the calories from dinner :).