In pastry displays – and pastry on display – tiny Portugal punches well above its weight. Confeitarias. Pastelarias. Padarias. Cake Shops. Leitarias. Casas de Cha, and Miradouro Quiosques. These are the unsung heroes of Portugal’s parishes, towns, and city streets, fixtures of local life, omnipresent in every neighborhood. Not fully acknowledged by the travel community, these venues certainly make an impression – by their overwhelming ubiquity, frequency of encounter, mind-numbing density of placement. Not so much in Lisbon where big city commotion – bright lights, levitating human statues, street musicians – and high rents, at least by local standards, help distract and dilute the almost comical concentration of cream tarts on display. Nazare and Obidos are somehow spared too, the focus here is single-mindedly on waves, of the Atlantic and the indigenous Ginja liqueur, respectively. But elsewhere in Central Portugal – from Sintra, Mafra, and Alcobaca to Coimbra, Aveiro, and Porto, and to Douro’s Peso da Regua and Villa Real – the uncompromising saturation of venues and overbearing breadth of selection in each have reached simply absurd levels, leaving no escape and no relief.
To say Portugal loves its pastry – and by that I mean egg yolk and sugar – would be a big understatement. Wherever you go, you face endless rows of quintessentially Portuguese sweets staring at you, tempting you, sizing you up – the marzipan Bolinho cakes, the ubiquitous Natas, the croissant-like Folhados, the delicious Queijada mini cheesecakes, the cream filled Jesuita pastry, the sugar-coated mini-doughnuts of the Filho, Malassada, and Bola variety. Standing in the displays shoulder to shoulder are rows of Rochas, Cavacas, Queques, the Suspiro meringues. Next to them are countless syrupy, slushy, gooey egg yolk-based confections shaped like animals. And piles of traditional pastry, with names that make you wonder whether they taste as good as they sound. Castanhas de Ovos and Trouxas de Ovos. Pingos de Tocha. Patas de Veado. Linguas do Sogra. Poveiros. Guardanapos. Brisas. Almendrados. Fogacas. Broinhas. Farturas. These are flanked by French-inspired Palmiers, generic Croissants, Eclairs, Petit Fours, Brazilian Brigadeiros, sugar coated Pasteis de Feijao tarts with sweet bean paste filling, cups of Sericaia egg pudding, Bolo de Arroz rice flour muffins, Tarte Salgada quiches, Clarinhas filled with squash jam. Standing on their own, stacked in covered contertop plates, are large Bolo pies, Bolacha flans, and Pao de Lo sponge cakes. Strangely, right alongside all these are baked concoctions with savory fillings that do not seem to belong, the half moon shaped Pasteis de Chaves stuffed with lamb, the ham and cheese Merenda typical of broader Southern Europe and beyond, and even the fried fish Croquetes. Only some of the creations involve recipes that are truly original, many are a product of a single ingredient variation on the theme, but there is clearly much more to Portugal’s baked goods scene than Pasteis de Nata – and you don’t need to venture much beyond gema e acucar – the yolk of an egg and sugar – as key ingredients to reach this conclusion.
Whether you are an enthusiast or simply curious, there is plenty of food for thought here. For example, just how many of these cake and pastry window displays does a mid-size city need, per foot, per block, per capita? How many varieties of egg yolk paste, cream, and custard – these are to Portuguese sweets what bacalhau, eggs, potatoes, and sardines are to its savory gastronomic fare – can there possibly be? And how many combinations and permutations of egg, milk, flower, sugar, and lemon juice are possible, even if you replace lemon juice with lime or with another ingredient every time? Egg yolk is such a core consumable here, sometimes it seems that it would take no less than a Lisbon-Porto pipeline, dedicated to supplying custard at high throughput, to feed the insatiable appetite of bakery kitchens and front windows around me. A chilling thought – industrial deliveries of egg yolk ready for use as glazing for all that cake, or to be cooked into a thick sugar syrup for use as filling in all the innumerable stuffed pastry – finishing touches, like the flavor of choice, added to baker’s taste at the point of sale. Thankfully, no distributed network would ever be feasible, even in Portugal, leaving the process behind the pastry manual, nuanced, local.
Is this a case of quantity over quality? Did Portuguese bakers not get the memo that less is more? A typical neighborhood pastelaria that casually caters to locals will contain up to a hundred or more of distinct stock keeping units of baked goods on its price lists and in its display cases. To be sure, lean American muffins and English scones are also gaining popularity, somewhere next to the new vegetarian restaurants – no surprise, just how many fried fish cakes can local populace stomach before they start craving some of the fruits of globalization? But I am talking strictly about traditional Portuguese specialties, not a new fad centered on Anglo-Saxon transplants. A wild frenzy of fillings, a violent excitement of flavors, a nearly endless variation of places of origin, shades, and ingredients. Sadly, the bulk of this decidedly oversized daily inventory of fresh, gooey delicacies is largely devoid of elegance and is merely palatable – overfilled, overly rich, overly creamy, overly sugary, they are somewhat basic, blatantly unrefined, and not all that distinguishable in look and taste from one another. Baked confections in the store windows and displays here are an acquired, and very local, taste, and almost endearing in their lack of refinement – and complete lack of concern over lack of refinement.
The refinement lacking is confined to baked goods on offer, and to their delivery, not to the window itself. To be clear, this is still Portugal, so there is also no shortage of refinement overall – as a matter of fact, characteristic style and fine detail are always present here in subtle and surprising ways. Expressive vintage signs above bakery window frame moldings are of superb quality, their decorative handwriting embossed or engraved in gold leaf on deep black lacquer plays off against colorful azulejo tiles and white limestone blocks of the facade, and against the black and white limestone cobbles of patterned calcada pavement in front of the window. This calligraphic sophistication follows you from store front to store front and is a true piece de resistance of Portugal’s authenticity, character, and craftsmanship – street graphics here can be outright stunning, rightfully stealing the show from other elements competing for your visual attention. I personally think there should be organized graphic art tours focusing at a minimum on the vintage store and workshop signs of Lisbon and Porto. But we digress.
Such fine accoutrements and accessories notwithstanding, when it comes to what’s on display, a typical pastelaria in Portugal seems oblivious to the aesthetics of its inventory, oddly indifferent to its merchantability, and deeply untroubled by how its plain looking product is perceived. Puzzling: shouldn’t any self-respecting over the counter purveyor of fresh pastry be all about making it look eye-catching and enticing, maybe with a view to selling a few pieces during the day? This lack of pretense and focus on substance over form is not unlike the generally unglamorous, frugal dress of its stoic, hardworking locals of older generation – friendly, easygoing and charming as they are – clothing stores here are stocked with local textiles, leather and shoes of enviable quality but showing no preoccupation with fashion or style. Traditional pastry in Portugal surely reflects local supply and demand – and since there is clearly no shortage of supply side competition, local demand must be equally undemanding, and certainly not overly critical or judgmental. Is it as simple as plain, no-nonsense pastry – for plain, no-nonsense populace?
You might ask, why stress about the subtleties of look or taste – people still take espresso at the counter, the brioche must be a side show? I would argue that Italy offers a good benchmark – it shares ‘standing at the counter’ coffee culture with Portugal, but most espresso bars there take a bit more pride in the packaging, presentation, flavor – albeit against a more manageable pastry selection. You will say the Inspired Snob commentary is not entirely fair, are you comparing mainstream Portuguese provincial cafes with the best of Italy, Paris, Austria? My response to you – fair, but ho come numerous cafes across in lived-in neighborhoods of NYC not spoiled by tourist attention, ranging from Chelsea’s Maison du Macaron to Upper West Side’s Muffin Shop (note that I am skipping Financier, Eric Kaiser, Sabarsky, Payard, and St Ambroeus in a deliberate effort to filter out opulent European transplants from the city’s everyday scene), have for years carried almond croissants and, frankly, bagels that are infinitely superior in taste and look to most of Portugal’s confections and baked goods? You might insist on removing major metropolises from the benchmark – fair again, scratch all that, and go no further than Liberske Lahudky, a run-of-the-mill bread counter at a local deli in Prague’s Nove Mesto, on the nearly tourist-free Vodickova street, a place hardly known for its decadent treats, and try their Zavin Tvarohovy s Visni – the sour cherry cheese strudel – or Makovec – the poppy seed pie – and you will appreciate just how different, for lack of a better word, Portugal’s pastry scene really is. Or better yet, try similar desserts sold by vendors from the countryside from seasonal outdoor market kiosks at Prague’s out of the way Namesti Republiky,for an even greater effect: I once carried a slice of poppy seed strudel in my pocket for an entire day in a hopeless effort to prolong the pleasure – and, for what it’s worth, I don’t eat sweets and generally lead a spartan lifestyle of work and workouts in the US.
Such strangely utilitarian approach of the Portuguese is almost proletarian – admittedly, ‘proletarian’ is more appropriate when describing shortages rather than undifferentiated abundance – and runs the risk of debasing the premium currency of viennoiserie, so carefully guarded elsewhere in Europe, to levels of mere baked sustenance. I recognize that this place is the opposite of flashy Paris, glitzy Milan or aristocratic Vienna, but I struggle with exactly how this lack of care fits with the refinement of Second Rome so clearly visible in sophisticated elegance of its Neo-Manueline and Pombaline era human-made surroundings.
And in the name of what exactly? We are not talking about learning a new trade here. Generations of bakers, centuries of uninterrupted and uncommonly varied daily flow of fresh pastry made in fabrico proprios have ostensibly secured significant know-how, undoubtedly more than meets the eye – many baked goods are exceptionally local, hailing from or even only produced in a certain region or village. Sure, Pasteis de Belem has been nationalized, even inernationalized for tourists’ consumption beyond Belem, and is made anywhere, Pasteis de Feijao is no longer confined to its native Torres Vedras locale, and soft egg Ovos Moles de Aveiro are common not only along the canals of its namesake town but throughout the country. However, the crisp, see-through dough of Pasteis de Tentugal, juicy pillow shapes of Travesseiros de Sintra, succulent mini cheesecakes known as Quijadas de Sintra, or Barriga de Freira, bread pudding from Alentejo, translated literally as nun’s belly, are produced mostly in their respective towns of origin, and even the widely popular and available Pao de Mafra must be made in a few designated parishes around the village of Mafra to be considered the real thing. With so much localization, resourcefulness, and collective muscle memory across the industry’s value chain, it shouldn’t be too difficult for an enterprising baker to upgrade to artisanal quality – all it takes from here is just a minor effort, a little push to get the chin of Portugal’s baked goods offering over the proverbial bar.
This is after all the country that has delivered the pinnacle of achievement in Renaissance cartography, sea faring, learning, and the arts. This is the country that produced the very best of the great discoverers who, unlike their larger neighbors to the East, rarely miscalculated, were never misguided about goals set, and did not have to resort to cover up for wrong destinations reached. This is the country that gave us Europe’s first large-scale orthogonal city grid – even if Marquis de Pombal’s post-quake uniform central plan, standardized design, and prefabricated construction were inspired by Christopher Wren’s forsaken designs for reconstruction of London after the Great Fire and by rectilinear expansion of Turin for the Dukes of Savoy by Vitozzi and Castellamonte. The country that produced the unique beauty of Moorish mosaics and the intricate cobblestone calcada patterns, that crafted for future generations an immense repository of gilded carvings of the most ostentatious kind and of the highest gold content, that created the most articulated terracotta roof tile designs one comes across while traveling throughout Europe. Few would argue that those world class discoverers, city planners, master masons, and goldsmiths were somehow lacking in attention to detail, artistic taste, or desire to outperform, outdo, outmatch. What then, may I ask, went so wrong with pastry – a product as Portuguese as the Age of Discoverers, Pombaline Enlightenment, or azulejo ceramics – a staple meant to elicit instant happiness upon consumption, so abundantly supplied and so heavily stocked by so many outlets?
The answer lies in part in eight centuries of Portuguese sweets, in part in the absence of a pastry ministry – over 200 popular varieties of the country’s confectionery originated in local convents, some recipes traced back to 13th century, many to the 16th, they are still known and advertised by their popular name doces conventuais. Each convent – and after the dissolution of hundreds of monasteries and nationalization of their property during the Portuguese Civil War of 1834, each town, and sometimes, each bakery – often had its own recipe for the same pastry. The Portuguese state has not been sufficiently organized or efficient to dictate which recipe the industry should standardize on, so each baker is free to stick to their own take on the tradition. Neither has the market – this extreme industry fragmentation is unimaginable elsewhere. I think we should all be very thankful for this lack of efficiency on the part of both Portugal’s government and its market. And basic, unrefined look of its pastry – or comfortable look of its older locals – that seem so much at odds with the pretense of a Second Rome may simply be a manifestation of the traditional virtue of humility and modesty in dress and appearance – universally applicable, unless we are talking about lasting monumental works of art periodically produced for the Catholic church and the absolutist monarchy.
Silver lining to the pastry cloud? Portugal’s obsession with panificacao, its savory oven-baked bread. Countless regional and local home-made varieties – hearty, savory, sweet, baked fresh daily with meticulous adherence to tradition and natural ingredients – are proudly on display across the country’s welcoming Padarias, local Grocery Markets, corner Delis, and back street Tascas. Wherever you go, fresh warm bread of all sorts, form factors, and sizes – the light sourdough Pao Alentejano, the crusty Pao de Mafra, the heavy rye Broa de Avintes, the Pao de Centeio containing olive oil and coffee, the corn and buckwheat based Pao de Milho, the sprouted multigrain and potato based Pao da Avo, the beer infused Pao de Cerveja, the olive oil based Pao Caseiro made in a ceramic pot, and even the plain white Pao Carcaca – looks, smells and tastes at least as delicious as any in Europe. Extremely affordable, they will set you back – admittedly, a useful generalization – by under a Euro a loaf, smaller breads are priced at as little as 35 cents, less than Torrada toasts and Sande sandwiches which go for anywhere from under a Euro to less than two apiece. But unless you are cooking while in Portugal, or are in a restaurant or at breakfast, fabulous local bread won’t do you much good if all you want at the moment is a brioche or something small with your cup of coffee.
And bread is not the only redeeming feature here – Portugal’s home-made pies, crepes, gelato, and coffee are all world class. Treats and delights intended for a sitdown experience and a fork – none of the myriads of Bolos, Tortas, Pudins, Queijada – in particular those made with almond and citrus – or even Toucinho do Ceu, a delicious and popular Portuguese almond cake surprisingly made with… pork lard – will not disappoint, the first slice will focus the mind on how to justify proceeding to a second one. Coffee and derivative beverages are very popular – in proportion to strength and in reverse order of milk content, Abatanado, Duplo, Espresso, Bica, Carioca, Comprido, Pingo, Pingado, Galao, Meia de Leite – the ones at the beginning of the list, the stronger ones, are uniformly good. None of that salty, bitter aftertaste from poorly chosen espresso beans so common at many of the newest Manhattan’s coffee shops that cater to latte-cappuccino consumer that will flood everything with milk anyway so the awful taste of espresso will be diluted to mildly tolerable, so why bother. Expect to pay about 25 cents on the dollar here compared to the US, expect the discount to NYC check to widen to as little as 15 cents on the dollar as you expand your order beyond coffee to include a brioche or croissant, or whatever their local equivalent is most appropriately called by the establishment you happen to be in. So it appears the formula for optimal enjoyment is to sit down for a slice of cake with a cup of coffee and get a loaf of fresh savory bread to go. But those of us who prefer our espresso standing at the counter or better yet, buying their item of pastry to go, are stuck with an offering that is often overwhelming in quantity but underwhelming in taste.
Dark chocolate here is crafted to exceptional taste, packaged with ultimate care for aesthetics. This may not be Paris – or Brussels, or Antwerp – but signs of a slow but steady awakening of Portuguese chocolatiers are on display – whether you deliberately plan for them or simply wander around hoping to stumble upon one. Lisbon and Porto have plenty of new boutiques – mostly catering to visitors, they have joined the global trend – offering exceptional dark chocolate made locally with the best of beans from Ecuador, Madagascar, Dominican Republic, ingredients mix and packaging designed with traditionally Portuguese or esoteric fruit and spice flavors. Chocolate across new and traditional places is consistent with traditions of quality, and will not disappoint no matter what form factor or retail channel – chocolate bars sold in the mass market, chucks – or slabs if you prefer – of bitter dark chocolate with hazelnuts available from traditional pastelarias, branded dense dark chocolate cakes sold on premise, viscous cacau quente or chocolate salami enjoyed at the counter, or tiny cubes of chocolate with supposedly distinct port, nuts and spice flavors. And most also offer espresso. For a taste of Lisbon’s chocolate try the famous Bettina and Niccolo Corallo Cafe, the beautiful Landeau Chocolate on Lisbon’s Rua das Flores, or Calcada do Cacau, the new artisanal chocolatier across from the National Pantheon offering port wine and an assortment of miniature flavored cubes of chocolate where the anticipation of experience impresses more than the taste, which seems simply lacking. In Porto check out Chocolataria Ecuador – around the corner from Largo Sao Domingos, the epicenter of Porto’s gastronomy and haute cuisine, with thriving outdoor terrace scene, day and night – for flavored and spiced bars, Burdick style. And in Mafra do not miss the top notch Pastelaria Fradinho for chunks of bitter dark chocolate with hazelnuts, for the road.
In pastry proper, occasional ornate cafes not much better, but by all means, if you are into historic cafe scene – you will be impressed by the carefully preserved interiors and attentive service, you may not see a local inside. These places may be historic but – they either sit empty waiting for tourist invasion or are in the middle of digesting one, depending on time of day – the only locals in the house are those wearing branded uniforms of their establishments. Lisbon’s A Brasileira and Porto’s Cafe Majestic, both of over-the-top, floral Art Nouveau variety, both in their cities’ retail epicenters, both endlessly photographed, and both quality establishments. Equally decent but somewhat more subdued are Confeitaria Nacional, a remarkably reliable historic venue on the edge of Lisbon’s handsome Baixa district between Praca Rossio and Praca da Figueira squares, and Pastelaria Alcoa sparkling corner store front on Lisbon’s Rua Garrett (their original store is in Alcobaca), unavoidable on the way from Baixa to the heart of the capital’s trendy Chiado, happening Bairro Alto, and nearby Bica districts. Among historic places on my hit or miss list are Cafe Nicola and Pastelaria Suica on the Bairo Alto side of Lisbon’s Rossio square or the pretentious but perpetually empty Joia da Coroa tea room on Porto’s pedestrian Rua das Flores. While most even in this class of cafes, including the unrivaled Confeitaria Nacional, are still cheap by any international comparison, you will pay up by Portuguese standards at Cafe Majestic. In a category of its own are pastry and dessert vendors inside Lisbon’s Time Out Market – I recommend the entire experience here including pastry if you are so inclined and still have capacity for it after enjoying succulent designer burgers, pricey ceviche, and delightful Alentejo wines from other vendors at the market – like everything else there, the dessert counters are beautiful, but like the ornate historic cafes, must be largely out of reach for most locals.
Whatever you think of these opulent places, the mainstream of the market is still a basic neighborhood shop bursting at the seams with its arcane inventory of cream filled dough. For a raw and unimpeachably authentic experience try Porto’s Cafetaria Marbella on Rua Santa Catarina close to Praca de Batalha and Mengos Pastelaria next block, enjoy the overwhelming selection with a view of two of the city’s most photogenic storefronts – from Marbella that of Livraria Latina on the corner of Rua de 31 de Janeiro and from Mengos that of Cafe Majestic across the street. Do not miss the impressive Confeitaria do Bolhao across the eponymous market, similar to many respectable establishments, it is a pasteleria, padaria, deli, and restaurant in one. For a still casual but more upscale sitdown experience – but only slightly more – try Mercador Cafe on Porto’s Rue Flores, behind the restrained ironwork of the beautiful front is a relaxing dining hall with high ceilings and great selection of coffee, pastry, and more. If and when on a coffee and pastry spree in Coimbra, I would make a quick early morning stop at the counter of Palmeira Panificacao e Pastelaria on Rua da Sofia across the square from the municipal building where a coffee and delicious Rochas will cost EUR 1.45 including tax, a longer lunch stop at the every central A Brasileira on Rua Ferreira Borges for a local mid-afternoon sitdown cafe experience surrounded by colorful older locals, another afternoon stop on the busy terrace outside Pastelaria Toledo on Largo da Portagem, the town’s picturesque square later in the afternoon. And on my way to the upper town and the university, half way up the maze of pedestrian lanes from Arco Almedina on Rua Ferreira Borges, I would make sure to make a quick stop for an espresso or more at the counter of Tapas nas Costas, a somewhat grown up yet friendly and casual restaurant serving delicious food, perhaps the best in Coimbra, overlooking the narrow steps of Rua Quebra Costas leading up to the stunning Largo Se Velha at the top. When in Sintra, I highly recommend heading straight to the small, family run Mourisca Bar, an out of the way pastelaria and restaurant in the back streets of the parish of Sao Pedro de Penaferrim, which recently joined Sintra, for authentic and respectable lunch and great desserts, and – out of character for Sintra where they seem basically absent – local people in attendance. Not to be missed when on the prime beachfront real estate in Nazare is Smileflavours gelateria, where a crepe with a scoop of thoroughly enjoyable ice cream is EUR 3.50 and a double espresso EUR 1.20. A great find for a quick, simple, extremely affordable, and very local lunch made up of coffee, pastry, sandwiches, in Lisbon, among many, is Portela Cafe appropriately located on the corner of Rua dos Bacalhoeiros and Rua da Padaria at the foot of Alfama and the nearby Rainha Dona Amelia Confeitaria for coffee and pastry.
In conventional confections, I am ready to acknowledge notable exceptions to bland presentation, sprinkled here and there. Portugal’s latest formula is simple, and it works: a designer boutique consisting of an industrialized retail showroom+seating area, and a monoline brand specializing in a single product offering, centered on a famous Portuguese specialty – like Pasteis de Nata or Bacalhau. Take Manteifaria, part design showroom, part fish tank, part chef’s counter, it does a great job conveying to window shoppers the freshness of its single product, the famous custard tarts, by displaying its manually administered baking process in real time at its Porto and Lisbon stores, and I would unconditionally favor its showroom across from Porto’s Bolhao market over Lisbon’s touristy Pasteis de Belem and certainly over Nata Lisboa, these days an international chain with three dozen locations all over Europe. Frabrica de Nata on Santa Caterina, Porto’s pedestrian shopping street, is another designer industrial kitchen-counter-cafe boutique celebrating Portugal’s national pastry and favorite pastime. And, of course, Casa Portuguesa do Pastel de Bacalhau, whose signage, interiors, presentation, and staff that puts on the show with a smile – all easy on the eyes if not outright beautiful – more than offset the fact that its main product, fried fishcake and cheese, delivered with near-fast-food efficiency, is among the most banal and commonplace around. Pastel do Bacalhau is a photogenic but touristy gimmick – not sure I have seen a local in its Porto’s location outside Torre de Clerigos or in its Lisbon’s Praca do Comercio store – although the unambiguous smell of the codfish fritters brought unmistakable flashbacks of the so-called ‘fish day’ Thursdays common across Soviet state-owned school canteens of my childhood – at least the smell must be authentic. These handsome places are simply not where local people eat. They are carefully planted to look native but still feel a bit foreign, they will inevitably grow into their surroundings sooner or later, but for now remain the exception not the rule.
I recommend a few alternatives to run of the mill desserts supplied by Portugal’s great custard pipeline. Traditional Bolo Rei and Bolo Rainha, the King’s and Queen’s cake, are at the very least rather photogenic, and recommended if you are into sweets by the slice. Some of those numerous egg and yolk permutations are also quite tasty, especially those involving almonds – like the Tarte de Amendoa or the Torrao Real – or almonds and lemon – like the Pao de Rala – or almonds and pumpkin – like the Manjar does Deuses. In fact, any of the Portuguese pastry that is encrusted with crushed almonds – the Queijada de Amendoa is just one of many – looks quite appetizing, tastes even better, and once you leave the shop, mercilessly appeals for your attention from the paper bag. I don’t need to go on about the delicacies heavy on nuts, oilseeds, and aromatic herbs, their list of ingredients makes it difficult to read without ordering one with a coffee. To cleanse the taste from all that egg yolk and sugar, and for a change of overall sentiment, try Rochas – this part puff pastry, part scone with no discernible sweetness with hints of cinnamon and lemon peel – prepare for a brief battle on your palate – is very different, considerably less rich, and more than satisfying, you can’t go wrong with Coimbra’s Palmeira Panificacao e Pastelaria on Rua Sofia. As to Segredo de D. Pedro, Portugal’s thin, flaky pastry stuffed with oats, apples, pine nuts, and raisins, it has to be one of the most delicious and inventive deserts one could encounter, and a breath of fresh air in the sea of sugar and cream. And Queijadas cheesecake, part traditional pie part muffin dating back to the 13th century and made with fresh cow cheese, cinnamon and orange, is another nice surprise – the best of them are sold for under a Euro apiece at Fabrica das Verdadeiras Queijadas da Sapa, a cozy roadside bakery counter with a back tea room outside Sintra, named after an 18th century baker who managed to scale up its production – this taste will not be easy to replicate elsewhere. The moderate sweetness and strong character – almond, oat, cow cheese, and spice as ingredients – should make any of the delicacies on this short list an ideal accompaniment for your glass of port.
So the issue with Portugal’s pastelarias after all is not a lack of exceedingly tasty deserts sold to go or with a cup of espresso – it is the endless and exhausting breadth of its incomprehensible offering. Way past the point of diminishing returns, this unmanageable assortment of barely distinguishable pastry simply produces the opposite effect – it casts a self-defeating shadow over many of its most-deserving options, cannibalizing and obscuring the real gems, confusing and intimidating even a seasoned traveler. Some items are best avoided despite their extreme affordability, but many of the dirt-cheap delicacies are not bad and don’t taste quite as filling as they look, some are more than edible and enjoyable, and a few are simply amazing. Sometimes less is truly more, and a limited top-down central planning effort, strategically aimed at truncating the lower tiers of exhausting menus, would only help put a well-deserved spotlight on the most attractive choices. However, I doubt such statist action is coming any time soon, so in the meantime, it is up to the traveler to figure out how to attack and navigate the congested streets of Portuguese pastry – without drowning in the thick egg yolk syrup – in search of those gems.
How can such quantity continue to be sold by so many outlets, for such a long time, and for so little? with individual pastry well under a Euro and coffee around that as well, a lunch substitute meal consisting of baguette sandwiches, quiches, toasts, and desserts with coffee and water for three – or four, if you are efficient – will cost you between EUR 12 and EUR 15 including tax, whether in Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra or one of Portugal’s many lesser towns, like Nazare or Aveiro. I get it, rent is low, lease rates are fixed for long tenors, labor is cheap, but has it occurred to anyone to simply raise prices? Maybe take out a competitor down the street to corner the proverbial market and then – with the tailwind of a little market power – raise prices? Or simply cut production in an effort to boost prices? Fragmentation must be extreme, overcapacity endemic, pricing power nonexistent, catalyst for consolidation nowhere to be found. In NY these filled deserts, their recipes, and certainly their purveyors would be in a battle for their very survival right now, and losing – to gluten free and paleo diets, calorie count disclosure rules, and 5 am Barry’s Bootcamp sessions. But the ones that made it would be rolled up and taken over by the likes of Baked by Melissa or Magnolia Bakery in a desperate attempt to upgrade its product mix, and would remain under siege from selfie stick wielding crowds, only more so – or, worse, by Diaggeo, Nestle, or Mars. In the process, radical synergies would be applied to the very number of bespoke units of pastry, on-premise fabrico proprios liquidated, online sales displacing counter side experience – but first, prices would at least quadruple in short order in a series of decisive, bold hikes. Of course, along the way, the egg and custard creations themselves would need to be watered down – for obvious reasons – and mercilessly marketed – NYC rents are unforgiving – bringing a bit more attention to the looks and packaging but at the expense of richness and authenticity.
But apparently in Portugal, consolidation is not a thing, or has not yet arrived at the fragmented pastry scene, or did but failed. Are there dis-economies of scale in the Portuguese pastry sector that require bakeries to stay small, processes semi-industrial, inventory management inefficient, product count excessive, in order to survive? Does the particular look, mix and taste of local delicacies, and the ostensible lack of concern over what appeals to the broader global palate, inadvertently limit the size of addressable market, unnecessarily confining it to the local customer, consisting of the frugal middle-aged and the impecunious kids? All those well-heeled but condescending tourists seems to have little interest in the indigenous, authentic Portuguese offering beyond Pasteis de Nata. Foreigners don’t have to count pennies while in Portugal and so choose to count calories instead, while incredulously marveling at the incredibly low prices, especially when expressed per calorie and per gram of sugar – after all, if it’s is so cheap, there must be a reason, so why bother buying? Is it possible that the force of competition, fierce elsewhere, clams up in this placid market where rents are soft, labor is abundant and undemanding, and egg custard is always flowing? Or maybe Portuguese pastry must be priced at next-to-nothing in order to sell, given the daunting volumes of all that perishable production that must be liquidated daily – the lucky consumer is getting paid to take delivery of Portugal’s continuous flow of baked goods, simply because no one has shut off the flow on the great custard supply pipeline? Maybe this is what makes any investment in Portugal’s bakery sector, indigenous or foreign, aimed at improving marketing, packaging, taste discovery and differentiation, deeply uneconomical? And if so, does this mean you get what you pay for? One day the ins and outs of Portugal’s pastelarias may find their way into the body of Harvard Business School case studies – but for now, irrational overcapacity and oversupply continue to rein unchecked and unchallenged, much to the delight of window shoppers. As long as egg yolk continues to flow like water, only cheaper, and this antiquated and fragmented scene somehow still offers all this choice, enjoy it while it lasts.
Difficult as such discovery may seem, you should be able to crack the code of Portuguese pastry – just don’t let the daunting and seemingly dull inventory or lack of discernible differences in flavor at first sight stop you. Based on recent personal experience – involving hours of directionless wandering, careful observation and kicking the tires, a few tactical tastings, lots of mental notes, limited Q&A across the counter, and an occasional use of the Linguee app – Inspired Snob recommends using a hands-on primary research approach and ditching the easier desktop review. (This was strictly research – did I mention I don’t eat desserts in NYC, or really anywhere but Europe, don’t consume any added sugar whatsoever, pick boot camp workouts over gluttony any day, and prefer my egg yolk poached on my gluten-free avocado toast?). So grit your teeth and dive into those long menu lists and pastry displays – just remember to also pack your best running shoes to take advantage of the hilly cobbled terrain, simply walking those lanes won’t help offset the pounds gained in the process.
