Padaria Santo António is a family business located a bit off downtown Porto. Still it’s quite worth the detour. It’s been open since 1968 and it passed from father to his four daughters. All of them had other plans in life but the love for the family business was stronger and they run one of the best bakeries in town.
They do invest in the quality of the products as well as in the recipes. Most of them are old simple but delicious recipes. Tradition is still very important to them at Padaria Santo António. Whenever I think of tradition, I remember baking cookies and cakes with my grandmother at home. Guess what? They have the same scrumptious cookies at the bakery. Take my word for it, they’re magic. They’ll make you go back in time. And they are absolutely addictive. Another specialty of theirs are the “bolas de Berlim” (Berliners – doughnut dough with cream).
Their amazing “bolas de berlim”! Hmmm…At Padaria Santo António you’ll have a huge difficulty in choosing what to have. The bread is really good. And all the pastries look delicious. Plus, everyday there’s a specialty. Just in case you mouth is already watering, picture this: mondays and wednesdays they have “jesuítas”, tuesdays and fridays the “glorinhas”, wednesdays they bake sweet bread and on weekends they have special croissants (salty and sweet). On top of that, they have a small room where they serve “home cooked” meals. Once again, most of the recipes run in the family books.
Padas, a famous variety of bread.
Because this bakery is not in the centre of the city of Porto (but only 3,5km away), you have to either get a car and drive through the city or get the number 600 bus, (that departs from Aliados Avenue and take the “Telheiro” exit). You can find the schedules on the STCP site (Porto’s buses). They’re open from 7 am to 8 pm and they serve lunch too (except on sundays).