Sofia, Bulgaria

Dot Sofia

Price per night from$166.30

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR149.99), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Dot Sofia Photos

Style

Millennium Balkan

Setting

City central Women’s Market

Explore

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In an up-and-coming neighbourhood close to the capital’s key sights, Dot Sofia is a luxe design den of apartment-style stays. Behind its striking red steel shutters, a team of local tastemakers has curated all kinds of sensory treats: 11 minimalist apartments, honed with fine Bulgarian craftsmanship; a restaurant putting an haute spin on traditional local plates; and displayed throughout, extraordinary contemporary art. Hundreds of years of history are on your doorstep, but an induction into 21st-century Sofia starts here.

Smith Extra

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One handmade Dot Sofia coffee cup a room

Facilities

Photos Dot Sofia facilities

Need to know

Rooms

11, including six suites.

Check–Out

Noon, but flexible for a €50 fee, subject to availability and prior arrangement. Check-in is at 3pm, but flexible, subject to availability and confirmation a day in advance.

More details

Rates at Dot Sofia don’t include breakfast, but Komat, the hotel’s restaurant, serves brunch at the weekend.

Also

There is lift access to all floors, and step-free access to every room, but no rooms have been specially adapted for guests with limited mobility.

At the hotel

Contemporary art collection, meeting room, exhibition space, garden, washing machine and tumble dryer, and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: smart TV, Bluetooth speaker, underfloor heating and cooling system, plug adaptors, iron, kitchenette with stove, mini fridge and toaster, Nespresso coffee machine, tea-making kit with Bulgarian herbal tea, slippers and bespoke Pepilota bath products.

Our favourite rooms

If you’re coming with friends, the Penthouse 360° makes a luxurious pied à terre, with the views from the rooftop terrace sweeping across the city to the mountains. But for romance, there’s no beating the Sky Studios with their partial glass ceilings – as the sun sets, watch the city’s windows begin to glow from your private balcony, then turn in for some under-the-covers stargazing.

Spa

There’s no spa, but the hotel’s roster of events often includes yoga and meditation workshops, and there are yoga mats to borrow for solo sessions.

Packing tips

Many of the hand-picked pieces you’ll find in your apartment are available to buy, so save suitcase space for an angular vase or some artisanal Bulgarian pottery.

Also

Dot’s diary of cultural events includes exhibitions from Sarieva, the country’s leading contemporary art gallery. When the salon’s not serving as a gallery, it can be booked for private soirees – or sauntered into with a book and a glass of cab sav.

Children

Welcome. Extra beds can be added to Garden Suites for €30 on request, for one child over the age of three. Loft Studios and Garden Suites can accommodate one younger child, and cots and highchairs are available at extra cost.

Sustainability efforts

When designing Dot Sofia, investing in green technology was a top priority; the hotel has a pump that uses geothermal wells to heat and cool the hotel in an energy efficient way, and the building’s steel façade helps to naturally conserve energy. At the restaurant, the kitchen is primarily stocked with produce from small local farms and suppliers, and the hotel works with an indie Bulgarian brand to produce bespoke, handmade and all-natural bath products.

Food and Drink

Photos Dot Sofia food and drink

Top Table

Let your artistic taste guide you. When your out of office is happily set for the foreseeable, the banquette beneath Stefan Nikolaev’s granite slab, embossed in gold leaf with the word “deadline”, makes an especially satisfying spot.

Dress Code

Athleisure to haute couture, all the better if it’s supporting Sofia’s homegrown designers – Maria Queen Maria’s monochrome deconstructed fits look made for Komat’s industrial minimalism.

Hotel restaurant

Komat is the hotel’s contemporary Bulgarian restaurant. It’s home to some of the art collection’s finest pieces, all boldly modern but Bulgarian through and through. The menu follows their cue, with reimagined versions of traditional recipes still proudly spotlighting long-loved local flavours – baked aubergine mousse is paired with tahini, lovage and Bulgarian yoghurt, risotto is rich with Bulgarian saffron. Tuck into a hearty plate of patatnik, a time-honoured cheese and potato pie, and you’ll be feeling patriotic. Weekends here mean big (often bubbly) brunches, with stalwarts such as avo toast pimped with Bagri ewe’s cheese and all manner of traditional sweet treats on offer, from fluffy buhti pastries with homemade jam to katmi, a kind of pancake drizzled with wild herb honey from the Balkan mountains.

Hotel bar

Komat’s craft cocktail list infuses the classics with a kick of local flavour. Current highlights include the Balkan negroni, which adds rakia and linden tea to the traditional vermouth and campari, and a mimosa made with rosé prosecco and homemade hibiscus syrup.

Last orders

Komat serves lunch from noon to 3pm and afternoon tea from 3pm to 6pm, Tuesday to Friday. Dinner is served from 6pm to 10pm, Tuesday to Saturday. At the weekend, brunch runs from 10am to 4pm. Komat is closed on Mondays.

Location

Photos Dot Sofia location
Address
Dot Sofia
Ul. Bratya Miladinovi 46
Sofia
1303
Bulgaria

Dot Sofia is in the Women’s Market area of the city’s historic centre, a stroll from the culture-melding Square of Tolerance.

Planes

Sofia Airport is a 30-minute drive away. The hotel can arrange private transfers for €30 to €90 each way, or taxis from €10 to €20.

Trains

Sofia’s Central Railway Station is a 10-minute drive, or 20-minute walk, from the hotel. You can get there direct from other Bulgarian hubs, Bucharest or on the sleeper service from Istanbul. The hotel can arrange transfers from the station for €10 to €30 each way.

Automobiles

There’s private underground parking at the hotel for €20 a night (€30 for the space with an electric vehicle charging point); book in advance to be sure of a spot. Alternatively, there’s ticketed parking on the street near the hotel: it’s €1 an hour between 8.30am and 8pm, Monday to Saturday and free at all other times.

Other

Sofia’s metro is a modern and efficient way to zip about the city. Serdica Metro Station, a 10-minute walk away, is your local stop. Get there from the airport on the M4 line, or from the Central Railway Station on the M1 line.

Worth getting out of bed for

The Women’s Market, which lends its name to Dot Sofia’s neighbourhood, is a sense-tingling open marketplace still thriving after almost 150 years – head there to stock up on spices and yours-for-a-song souvenirs. A short stroll from the hotel, you’ll find the Square of Tolerance, a cultural crossroads where the Saint Nedelya Orthodox Cathedral, the Banya Bashi Mosque, the Sofia Synagogue and the St Joseph Catholic Cathedral are all within a few minutes’ walk of each other. Immerse yourself in the city’s heritage at the Regional History Museum of Sofia – the building was once home to the Central Mineral Baths, and you can still sample the natural hot springs from the fountains in the square outside. If the hotel’s collection has you curious, you can branch out further into Bulgaria’s artistic heritage at the National Gallery. Borisova Gradina is Sofia’s much loved park, with tree-lined avenues and a rosarium brushing up against historic statues and a huge Communist monument, but for a dose of green closer to home, snag a sycamore-shaded bench in the City Garden.

Local restaurants

Standart is a local-secret spot a few minutes from the hotel, serving hearty homemade food and locally brewed beer. At the other end of the scale, it’s worth venturing further afield to André for colourful, contemporary fine dining. And for a wholesome lunch, Sun Moon is a health-focused restaurant and café where the menu is completely vegetarian and their signature ancient grains sourdough is baked daily.

Local bars

Barila Bar is your local watering hole, a no-frills place to nurse a beer and exchange a nod with the regulars after a hard day’s exploring. Hidden down an anonymous alleyway and lit only by flickering candles, Hambara is a knock-to-enter secret bar…that’s proved a runaway success with the local hipster crowd. Not so secret then, but it should still be on your hit list for the romantic atmosphere and reasonably priced beer selection. Public has more polish, with envelope-pushing craft cocktails and live DJs at the weekend.

Reviews

Photos Dot Sofia reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this design-conscious hotel in the Bulgarian capital and unpacked their herbal tea and handmade coffee cups, a full account of their art-filled break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Dot Sofia…

Don’t let the rusted steel façade fool you – design-focused stay Dot Sofia is as fresh as they come. Cool industrial architecture makes a fitting canvas for a contemporary art collection curated by Vesselina Sarieva, a leading light of the Balkan art scene, with neon signs by Stefan Nikolaev and abstract canvases by Pravdoliub Ivanov perfectly at home against the grit-meets-glamour backdrop. 

But Guggenheim-esque sterility is sidestepped thanks to the people behind the project – a group so passionate about sharing the country’s culture, the walls might as well be scrawled with “make yourself at home”. Each self-contained apartment is unwaveringly minimalist, but meticulous care went into sourcing furnishings from Bulgarian craftspeople. Chef Komat's dishes are modern and inventive, but take traditional local recipes as the blueprint. The big picture’s best seen from the penthouse’s rooftop terrace, where panoramic views take in minarets and Orthodox domes, Belle Époque mansions and working markets. If there was any doubt over the city’s cultural cachet, Dot Sofia is concrete proof.

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Price per night from $166.30