Restaurant L’Etranger score by the 5D Sensograph of placescases.com: 5 out of 5.

April 2018 

Seen                  

Felt                   

Heard                        

Smelled            

Tasted                                   

There are no French restaurants in Sofia anymore. L’Instant set out to make catering and the Gastrotheque, where Danny Spartak from Hell’s Kitchen was the chef, is closed. The only place where you can taste French specialties is restaurant L’Etranger.

‘L’entrager’ means ‘the stranger’, ‘the foreigner’ in French. There is also a Camus novel, The Stranger, in which he, typically about the era and his style, emphasizes absurdity and existentialism.

But there is nothing like that here. No one feels alien – Bulgarians and French are at home and do not care about Camus’ views.

See ….

…. Chic!– It’s like entering a real French bistro;

…. Details that delicately takes you to Paris – a bicycle with a basket of flowers, straw hat, flowers, city clocks, paintings, pictures! 

Feel ….

…. Like home – courteous service, very friendly to children, contact is extraordinary;

…. All French guests of Sofia and ex-pat should learn about this place– everybody speaks French there;

… Crunch-Crunch Salty Finger or Sea Green Beans, I’m very fond of it and it escorts almost all of the dishes!

Hear ….

… Jazzy Sax and then French chanson – for true Parisian spirit.

Smell …

… Slight cinnamon in cappuccino with nettle, which is actually a soup of nettle topped with potato foam, served in a cup;

… The exotic smell of coriander in Vietnamese spring rolls – an absolutely vegan dish, suitable for salad, with fresh, very finely chopped vegetables in rice bark, served with a sweet-sour sauce, wonderfully fresh and aromatic. 

 Taste ….

… A plate with home-made pastes with duck rillets, hummus, olives pesto, butter with anchovies, corned duck meat– only the rillettes did not impress me because they are more fatty, but this anchovy butter, the corned duck meat and humus just lay down on my heart – unique, one of my daughters did not stop stealing them from me!;

…. Frog legs – served with sautéed spices (I sensed garlic, coriander, parsley, butter) so delicious, and a lovely crispy Salty Finger on the side (I found it funny that the dish was written as “frogs” in the bill);

… Freshly baked bread and olives with Provencal spices, which the children ate up in no time and wanted more.

… I can not help mentioning the wine, all the more so that they had 375 ml bottles of fine wine:

• From the Rhone Valley – Attitude 2016 from Pascal Jolivet, Sauvignon Blanc
• From Burgundy Chablis by Albert Bichot 2015

The wine went very well with our food! Do not be afraid to combine with seafood. The “frogs” fit great too! 🙂

L’Etranger received the award for Tasty Place of the Restaurant of the Year by Bacchus magazine, and this is no strange at all.

SEE WHICH WERE THE BEST RESTAURANTS FOR 2017 IN BULGARIA ACCORDING TO BACCHUS MAGAZINE

My children did not stop repeating how wonderful the food was. One ate mussels, the other rib-eye steak. We ate everything, and we were absolutely full. Only the chocolate mousse was not what I expected, but we were so overwhelmed that I did not care.We ate from each other’s plates and felt happy.

I want to go back to restaurant L’Etranger very soon. My whole family liked it very,very, very much !!!!!

How to get to restaurant L’Etranger?

Don’t worry about getting to L’Etranger in Sofia. Just use the Google map here by clicking on the red pin of its location and then select directions:

A: Sofia 1505, Tsar Simeon 78

T: +359 887 523 376

E: bistrot_letranger@hotmail.com

Opening hours: Monday to Friday 12: 00- 15:00, 18: 00-22: 00, Saturday 18: 00-22: 00

Where to stay if you are not from the city?

If you are not from Sofia and you are already planning a visit to the city,  I recommend that you book your stay right here. For your convenience, I have added a booking.com box, which refers directly to their site. I guarantee you’re going to use all your genius discounts and privileges they would offer to you. Just enter the dates of your trip, then hit the Search button and voila. In addition, booking.com are doing their best to make sure that your expectations as a customer are fulfilled. I’ve described an example about the latter in  my story about our stay in Shangri-La hotel in Singapore .


Booking.com

If you need to rent a car for your trip, you can book it here in the box of the largest booking platform.

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Do you ever wonder how some places differ so much from others in service, environment, as an overall experience? This means you are also interested like me in the topic of The Experience Economy by Pine and Gilmore. I constantly add to my collection reviews about those of them, which practice its principles, regardless of intentionally or accidentally. If you are curious to understand which are they, explore category The Experience Economy.