Not just a restaurant

I don’t think ONÀ makes sense to be called a “restaurant,” because apart from the fact that they serve you food, it has very little in common with that word. The experience is more of a journey than a dinner. You set off from Sofia (or even from another continent entirely, which isn’t that unbelievable—we’ve heard of such cases too), and that’s actually the beginning of the whole adventure. Along the way, you see many beautiful places, and in those hours away from the constant buzz of big city life, you gradually enter a quieter world, one that feels closer to your natural state. The closer you get to your destination, the greener and wilder it becomes, until you reach the houses in Stakevtsi, where you’re welcomed and accommodated by Filip Zahariev himself. Let me clarify—this is the person who created ONÀ, someone who has spent his entire life cooking, traveling, and working all over the world, and has been a head chef in Michelin-starred restaurants. I didn’t initially want to, but today I got curious and looked up his birth date online. After seeing his chart, it became clear to me why he is so natural and unpretentious despite his level. That Aquarius Moon that so strongly rejects norms and roles in society, combined with the pioneering mind of Mercury in Aries, the love for flavors, forms, and colors from a Taurus Sun, and of course the tireless ambition and persistence of Mars in Capricorn. As an astrologer, I would say that the ingredients in his chart truly create the conditions for a perfect final product—one that doesn’t show off unnecessarily, but lets the personal experience speak for itself. Because an experience like this could have easily been overly pretentious and artificially inflated with a sense of pathos and drama—but instead, it felt like coming “home to the countryside.” The houses are old but renovated and preserved in their traditional style, and the dinner itself takes place just meters away from the kitchen, in a cozy room lit by the flames of a stove and candles on the table. When you enter, you’re welcomed with knitted slippers to put on, and another very interesting detail is that all guests share one table. You sit with six to eight complete strangers, for whom you are also a new face. The introvert in me was terrified of this idea, but by the end of the evening I realized that this was actually one of the most valuable and essential parts of the whole experience. You see how quickly people bond and how easily they find a way to connect. You see love and a sense of brotherhood—not because you’re related, not because you know each other, not because anyone owes anything to anyone, but simply because you’re there together, sharing the same experience. The dinner is supposedly a pre-prepared seven-course “secret” menu, but even there the rules are flexible—it ended up being nine or ten courses; I’ve already lost count. What I won’t forget, however, are the dishes themselves—they’ll stay with me for months. I’m not ready to say that I loved absolutely everything, because there were elements I personally don’t eat or combinations that aren’t to my taste. But that has nothing to do with the execution, the presentation, or the quality of the products and how they’re handled. And that’s coming from someone who actually enjoys strange, experimental combinations—one of the desserts (chocolate with… porcini mushrooms) completely blew my mind, and I’ll probably dream about it for a long time. Though for others at the table, it was mind-blowing in… a different way. There was a different wine or alcoholic pairing for each dish. There was amuse-bouche, finger food, a warm broth, a palate cleanser, a dish with perfectly prepared local fish, a pumpkin and truffle dish, a wasabi mousse (which I now cannot live without—Filip, if you’re reading this, I’d trade a kidney and one reincarnation for the recipe), there was even street food—if street food were on sensory steroids. There were not one, not two, but three desserts (because, as we’ve established, rules are for people without imagination). Desserts that make you want to cry—you want to eat them, but you also don’t want to, because that would mean they’re gone. And I don’t want to describe the flavors—not only because it’s good to keep some mystery, but mostly because I don’t want to relive them only in my mind and start resenting reality. A reality in which, 190 km away, new guests will sit today in those same comfortable chairs and taste this menu—while I’ll be back in Sofia ordering pizza for dinner. Despite the brutal realizations and the lingering aftereffects of encountering something so pure, genuine, made with taste, love, and sincere intention—not out of obligation or under stress—for me this experience was truly valuable. And the more time passes, the more that value increases. I keep thinking about everything I felt there. I’m even grateful for my headache, because it showed me that there are people who don’t know me and may never see me again, who left the table, went out into the cold, walked to the neighboring house where they were staying, just to bring me something to help me feel better. People with whom we laughed and joked as if we’d known each other for years. Food, flavors, and combinations I know I won’t experience again—unless I return before Filip suddenly decides to change the menu (which, judging by his chart, might literally be tomorrow). I also won’t forget how he and the guest chef (also world-class, yet cooking in a village with fewer than 200 people) sat down with us after dinner, and we talked for a long time—about food, about their personal journeys—something that was truly inspiring and added even more value to the experience. We went to bed in a warm, cozy, and clean place, filled not only with art in the form of edible creations, but also with plenty of food for thought—about how important it is to believe in your dreams and fight for them, even when everyone else believes more in your failure than in your success. People often lose faith when they face opposition or don’t feel supported. But I wish we could all be a bit more like Filip—believing in our mission just as strongly, and fighting persistently through difficulties, without ever allowing failure to become an option. I am sincerely grateful to everyone involved in this experience… and most likely, by summer at the latest, I won’t be able to resist coming back for more. ✨