Pastel de Belém Just Won World's Best Pastry: Here's What That Means for Us
I'll admit it: the first time someone told me a custard tart from a monastery bakery in Lisbon was the best pastry on earth, I thought it was tourist talk. Then I actually stood in that line in Belém at seven in the morning, before the heat rolled in, and had one still warm from the oven. I got it immediately — the shell shatters the second your fork touches it, the custard sags just slightly in the middle, and those dark caramelised freckles on top tell you exactly how hot that oven was.
This week, the case got official backing. TasteAtlas has just crowned the pastel de Belém the world's best pastry for 2026, scoring 4.59 out of 5, with the classic pastel de nata trailing right behind in third place. It's not really a surprise to anyone who's tasted one — it's more of a confirmation of what Lisbon has known for two centuries. And it's landing at a strange moment: Portugal has just issued red heat alerts for Lisbon and several other districts, with temperatures pushing past 40 degrees in parts of the country. Even in that heat, the queue outside the big pastelarias hasn't thinned for a second.
The story behind the tart is worth retelling, even if you've heard it before. Monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém are credited with perfecting the recipe in the nineteenth century, selling the pastries to fund their community after the 1820 liberal revolution shut down convents' other income. Two centuries on, that recipe — still guarded closely by a handful of Lisbon bakers — has travelled the world without losing what makes it work: a handful of honest ingredients, and zero room for error in the execution.
What is shifting is how people are eating it this summer. With the heatwave pushing Lisboetas toward anything cool and light, a few pastelarias have started leaning into citrus — a dusting of lemon or orange zest instead of the usual cinnamon, or a side of red fruit to cut through the richness of the custard. It's not a departure from tradition so much as tradition listening to the season, which is exactly the approach we take at Wooly.
In our shops in Stockel, Tongeren, Uccle, and Waterloo, our pastel de nata still follows the classic Portuguese method — house-made puff pastry, a properly perfumed custard, baked at very high heat to get that uneven caramelisation that makes or breaks the whole thing. But in summer, we like serving it just warm alongside an iced coffee, and we'll dust a citrus zest over a few trays as a small nod to what's happening right now in Lisbon. It's our way of bringing a little bit of that city to Brussels, one bite at a time.
So next time you're walking past one of our shops, it's worth stopping for the pastry that's officially just been named the best in the world. No flight to Lisbon required — just the door of your neighbourhood pastelaria.