Pastel de nata lunch Belem

A Portuguese friend from work gave me a tip for the best Portuguese tarts so we headed by tram to the nearby town of Belem. Here we visited the monastery of Belem (Jeronimos Monastery) where the monks made the first ever Portuguese tarts. The cafe nearby to the monastery pastel de Belem uses the highly guarded same recipe as the monks.

Portuguese tarts we invented because the monks and nuns in the monastery would use egg whites to starch their habits. All the monasteries in Portugal were closing down due to costs. So the Belem monks did a deal with the sugar refinery next door and turned the excess yolks into custard tarts to sell so they could survive.

The pastel de Belem definitely got my number 1 ranking for best pastel de nata. Closely followed by pastel de licor near our Airbnb in Lisbon that came with a shot of pastel de nata liquore and our first pastel de nata in Faro at the cherry cafe.Read more