Izzy's is a neighbourhood café in Lozenets with an outdoor terrace that occupies a small courtyard between buildings — gravel underfoot, a timber pergola, a wooden bench and a pair of chairs set at the counter-window. The sign is a green awning with a tree logo; the building behind is one of Sofia's unremarkable mid-century residential blocks, which is precisely the point. The coffee is good and the brunch menu runs to the usual morning options executed without excess. The correct use of Izzy's is the hour before the neighbourhood fills up — when the courtyard is quiet and the morning light is still low. The kind of place that earns its loyalty incrementally, by simply being reliable and calm in a city that has acquired more ambition than it has yet earned in quality.
Lozenets, Sofia, Bulgaria