History
TASTE OF TRADITION
AN EVENING AT THE CORNER HOUSE "POD LIPITE" (UNDER THE LINDEN)
Memory from the Past
It is namely with this feeling that each of our guests leaves the restaurant. Tasting our specialties of the house, you will delight in home-made food.
As early as from its very creation in 1926 as Select Pub, Under the Linden Restaurant managed to fascinate its visitors. Elin Pelin, Angel Karaliychev, Sirak Skitnik (Sirak the Wanderer), Aleksandar Balabanov, Elena Snezhina and a lot of other distinguished Bulgarians were the most regular ones amongst them. It was namely the creator of some of the best Bulgarian short stories and works in those troubled times who gave the name of the restaurant which was preserved up to date „Under the Linden”. Elin Pelin was amongst the most frequent visitors of the small neighborhood pub, which gave shelter to a number of renowned Bulgarians and provided them with the tranquility and the comfort to create articles and short stories sharing their table and wine from Karabunar and Vinogradets. The regular clients knew each other and there seldom were newcomers amongst them. The company got larger when in 1930 Dora Gabe moved to the floor for tenants of the Tasevs’ family. She was the favorite tenant of the landlord – General Tasev. She had the best taste according to him. She furnished the attic with couches and wooden cabinets in folk style. Elisaveta Bagryana was also one of the most frequent visitors to this home. Spontaneously the literary readings often changed their place from Dora’s home downstairs in the pub, and the company grew up bigger and bigger. This pub was a part of the daily grind of those who occupy their deserved indisputable place in Bulgarian classics nowadays.
One of the oldest restaurants in Sofia well preserves its history, following up its tradition to offer traditional Bulgarian dishes prepared with Bulgarian products, most of which their own production.
Our farm beside the village of Osoitsa is our guarantee for a more different, but definitely more genuine taste!
Home-made meat and mince, yoghurt and cheese, bread and jams get our guests back to the world of their childhood memories with Grandma’s dishes.
Chosen and well selected breeds of meat-calves, dairy cows (from Montbeliard breed), sheep, goats and pigs are bred on the farm, which are used by us to make various dishes from the menu. The restaurant offers its guests a rich choice of lukankas (kinds of dried sausages) and soudzhoutsi (flat salami) of veal and game, minced meat, sausages for grilling and dry appetizers – pastrami, fillet Elena and soushenitsa (dried salami) made in the restaurant according to old recipes. And as the round loaves and lutenitsas (slightly hot paprika and tomato spreads) constitute an invariable part of the table of Bulgarians, we prepare a variety of round loaves and banitsas (filo pastry with cheese) baked in the oven as well as delicious lutenitsa and kyopoolu (baked aubergine, tomatoes, paprikas and garlic with herbs mashed into a puree) with freshly baked vegetables for our guests. But the milk we make our home-made kinds of cheese and our home-made yoghurt from is not less delicious. The closed cycle, which starts from the special kinds of fodder and manner of breeding, guarantees repeatability and high quality of the animals bred and thence high quality of the products themselves.
The jams of wild strawberries and blueberries and the honey, which we sweeten our home-made yoghurt are another pleasant surprise, which we take pride in.
We will offer you recipes taken from various ends of the country. Each dish is connected with a myth, a belief or a ritual. It is a part of the fairy tale. You will have the opportunity not only to lend variety to your meals but also to impress your guests with something original, garnishing it with a wise and exotic story from the Balkans. You will be pleasantly surprised to taste the traditional, but a little forgotten dishes and soups of Bulgarian people.
