The foundations were laid of a municipal gourmet restaurant in Varbitsa. The idea is to provide a market to local producers but also to draw tourists’ attention to the small town near Shumen.

People in Varbitsa are proud of their culinary traditions which have been passed down for generations, and one of the sub-Balkan specialities here is beans with pastirma.

The new restaurant will be built on an area of 250 sq. m., and will cost almost BGN 300,000.

“This sum has been budgeted in the equity programme and will come from the municipality’s own revenues,” the mayor of Varbitsa, engineer Merdin Bayram explains.

It is mayor Bayram’s intention to see the gourmet restaurant start welcoming visitors in the autumn, with specialities using meat, milk, mushrooms, herbs and honey provided by producers locally.  

This new temptation for gourmands will be located in the front end of market square where dozens of visitors and tradesmen gather every autumn for the traditional Varbitsa fair.

“That is what the town council had in mind – to stimulate tourism as well as the smallest-scale producers in Varbitsa municipality,” says mayor Bayram.