29 May Best Pasteis de Nata in Algarve — The Places We Still Think About After Portugal
Even before going to Portugal, without realizing it, we had already encountered a little bit of this dessert, a little bit of this Portuguese sweetness, during our trip through Andalusia, where in Granada, after exploring the Alhambra, we bought two pasteis de nata that seemed absolutely wow to us, and then continued our trip without suspecting that only a few months later we would end up eating pasteis de nata every single day for 11 days, right there in Portugal, in the Algarve.
Maybe after this trip, pasteis de nata became one of our favorite desserts and, if there is one thing I miss now in the mornings, it is the fact that I cannot wake up, drink an espresso, eat a pastel de nata and start the day this way.
Yes, in the first article — and we will place the link to the piri-piri one here in parentheses — we talked about a traditional dish. We will continue in today’s post with an iconic dessert for Portugal.
We have been to many countries and eaten many desserts, croissants, candies, etc. I think pasteis de nata are in the top three desserts that I prefer both while traveling and even at home, for reasons that I will mention a little later as we go through and talk about each place individually.
Almost the entire trip I believed that one pastel de nata would win and would be the best one, but toward the end we had another experience, in another place, and the ranking completely changed.
What I want to say before starting is that we did not eat a single bad pastel de nata. All of them were good.
However, you will see from the description I will make, or at least try to make, for every place why we chose this order.
Trigo Dourado — the best pastel de nata we ate during our Algarve trip
At Trigo Dourado we tried several other things too and I will probably make a separate article about them, but here I want to focus on two things: the traditional pastel de nata and a pistachio pastel de nata.
If the pistachio one was ok, nothing special and exactly what I expected, the original pastel de nata was, without any doubt, the best one we ate during the entire Algarve trip.
First, it was the most consistent pastel de nata.
We ate six or maybe eight of them and every single one, regardless of the hour or the day we went there, had the same taste, the same texture and the same crust, always slightly caramelized.
The puff pastry was extremely crunchy, exactly how I now imagine a perfect pastel de nata should be. The cream texture was probably the most balanced out of all the places where we ate, and the combination between that cream and the very crunchy exterior was something we did not fully find again in the other locations.
In some places the cream was very good, in others the pastry was excellent, but here everything seemed to work together every single time.
It is the place I would recommend to anyone arriving in Faro.
Trigo Dourado is a large pastry shop with many sweets and baked products, with a terrace outside and plenty of space inside where you can sit peacefully, drink coffee and try different things.
The staff was very nice every time we went there.
But honestly, no matter what else you order here, I think a pastel de nata is mandatory.
And the funny thing is that simply dictating this article and thinking about them again instantly made me crave them.
There is something extremely satisfying about hearing that crunch and then seeing the pastel open beautifully while the cream almost starts flowing from the inside.
I think this exact combination is what I loved most here: the very crunchy exterior and the extremely creamy interior.
I also really appreciated the fact that cinnamon was offered even when we took them to go, something that made the whole experience feel more authentic and closer to what this dessert probably means for Portuguese people.
We ate here several times and I think the only real regret is that we did not come back even more often.
That is the only thing I would change.
Adoce a Vida — the place we believed almost the entire trip would win
Almost the entire trip we were convinced that the pastel de nata from here would remain in first place.
We ate almost every day from this place in Lagos and honestly the fact that we kept returning probably says more than any description.
Of course, that did not stop us from trying other places as well, as you will see later, but Adoce a Vida remained for a very long time the reference point against which we compared all the other pasteis de nata in Algarve.
And the truth is that we were extremely satisfied almost every single time.
The difference compared to the first place would probably have been even smaller if it had not been for the final days of the trip, when we took some to go again and felt that things had changed slightly.
If at the beginning the pasteis had that perfect crunch and caramelized texture that we had already started obsessively looking for, during the final two visits something no longer felt identical.
The crunch was not as present anymore, the pastry seemed slightly softer and they no longer had exactly that super fresh feeling they had before.
They were not bad at all. Far from it.
It is just that after making so many comparisons almost daily, we started noticing the small differences.
The location itself is small, on a narrow street in Lagos, with a few tables outside and a display window full of pasteis de nata that honestly make you crave them instantly when walking by.
And even though in the end it remained in second place, I think that says a lot about how good it was.
We can recommend this place to anyone arriving in Lagos.
And if I return there tomorrow, this would probably once again be the first place where I would stop for a pastel de nata.
Pastelaria Algarve — the place that reminded me of old pastry shops in Bucharest
Pastelaria Algarve is a place located directly on the street, in a central area of Lagos, and one of the first things that came to mind when I entered was that it reminded me very much of the old pastry shops in Bucharest.
It has a few tables outside and a simple interior space for customers.
The staff was super friendly and very nice.
Right from the beginning I should mention that this was the place where I had to pay cash because they did not accept cards.
We ate pasteis de nata here once or twice and for a long time I believed this place would remain in second place in our ranking.
But after discovering Trigo Dourado in Faro, it dropped to third place, behind that location and Adoce a Vida.
The pastel de nata here was good. I cannot say anything negative about the cream or the overall feeling, but the exterior was somehow one single piece and did not have that crunch that I appreciated so much at the first two locations.
And I think exactly because of that, Pastelaria Algarve remained in third place.
It is a very ok pastel de nata and you cannot go wrong if you eat here, but there are better options — one even in Lagos, only a few hundred meters away, and another one in Faro.
Pastelaria Gomba — the place with the funniest story of the trip
Here we also have a funny story.
When we entered the address into Google Maps, the app took us to the second location of the pastry shop, one that had not opened yet at that moment.
And right in front of it we luckily met the owner of the two pastry shops, who very kindly offered to drive us to the first location because he had to deliver some things there anyway.
On the way we talked about many things — the beauty of the Algarve, food, where we are from and other random topics.
From this point of view, it was one of the first very nice interactions we had with locals in the Algarve.
And this is how we arrived at Pastelaria Gomba, where we bought four pasteis de nata during two separate occasions.
From the beginning I have to say that Gomba is a little different compared to the other places where we ate pasteis de nata.
It feels more modern, newer, compared to the other pastry shops which somehow had that atmosphere of smaller, older and slightly darker stores.
The pastel de nata was good, but it did not have that crunchy exterior, that feeling where you bite into it and small puff pastry crumbs start falling.
It was a good pastel and we really enjoyed the experience and the interaction with the owner, but I believe that in Lagos there are still two locations that are above Gomba.
Pastelaria Tavirense — a good pastel de nata, but without the crunch we had started looking for
Pastelaria Tavirense in Tavira was the fifth place where we ate pasteis de nata during this trip.
We chose this position because the pastel de nata here felt absolutely ok, but it did not have that slightly burnt and crunchy exterior that we had started almost obsessively searching for after the first days in the Algarve.
And I think that exactly because of this it remained slightly below Pastelaria Gomba, which occupied fourth place in our ranking.
The location itself is very nice, with tables outside, space inside and a super friendly staff.
But from the point of view of how much we enjoyed the pastel de nata itself, this one occupied fifth place in our ranking.
What is important to mention at the end of this article is the fact that in many of these places we also tried other products — such as Dom Rodrigo or different types of cakes and local sweets.
Here we referred strictly to pasteis de nata, while the rest of the products will be included in a larger article about sweets and food in the Algarve.
And I think this is the best approach because there were situations where certain products impressed us a lot even if the pastel de nata from that specific location did not occupy the top positions in our ranking.
If you want to read more about our 11 day trip to the Algarve, you can do it here
If you are interested about our acommodation, we have an article here
And if you are curious about one of the most famous Portuguese dishes we tried during our trip to the Algarve, we have an article here
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