by Marie-Luise Stromer

Created on: November 18, 2010

Third time lucky! My husband and I always travel with a guidebook and like reading it before we start as well as on the spot, but somehow we managed to overlook the mention of the most famous bakery of Lisbon, the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, Rua de Belém 84-82, during our first two stays in the city, or we didn’t take the praise heaped on it seriously. When a tourist couple in our hotel raved enthusiastically about it, we decided to finally have a look. Belém is a suburb of Lisbon and can easily be reached by bus, tram or train, a taxi ride from the centre costs about 6 Euro. It’s to the right (across the street) of the Mosteiro dos Jéronimos (Jeronimos Monastery), which is a must for all tourists to Lisbon and therefore easy to find.

At the beginning of the 19th century when the story of the now famous pastelaria (bakery) started, Belém was far away from Lisbon and could only be reached by boat. The village had a sugar cane refinery which also contained a general store. When in 1820 all monasteries and convents were closed in Portugal due to the liberal revolution, someone from the adjacent Jeronimos Monastery had the idea of taking sweet pastries to the shop and offer them for sale to earn some money. People from the city who used to visit Belém to admire the beauty of the monastery and the Tower of Belém soon took to savouring the pastries in the store.

It must be said that the ‘Pasteis de Belém’ can also be bought in the pastelarias of Lisbon (the city is full of pastelarias!), but they’re not the real thing as we now know. They’re sold warm but they’re warmed up and that’s not the same as them coming fresh out of the oven.

The Antiga Confeitaria is rather inconspicuous from the outside although it now occupies two houses. One could walk by if there weren’t a queue of people spilling out of the right entrance of the shop onto the pavement. They either buy pastries to take away in special cardboard containers or eat them standing at the counter where they can also get coffee. On the walls beside the counter all the items which can also be bought are on display, crockery with the logo, wine, packed sweets, knickknack.

Customers wanting to sit inside enter through the left door. A wonderful flavour of cinnamon hits our nostrils when we get in, yummy! There are some small rooms behind the counter whose walls are covered with tiles depicting Belém

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