Anyone who has been to Portugal knows they have some of the best pastries going around. So you have this in mind when you hear of a shop selling a Portuguese tarts and make it a mission to visit.
I’m not sure why I’ve never noticed Tuga before since it’s only a block from where I work and I drive up Clovelly Road regularly. But it’s quite a small shop with an inconspicuous frontage so it’s probably understandable why I missed it. I was drawn to the pastry shop after seeing an Instagram friend tagged here.
Tuga is a pastry store selling breads, sweets, pies and it is also the home of their signature item, the pastel de nata, or the Portuguese tart, developed in Lisboa Portugal in 1837.
The history behind this tart coming to Australia is as follows. Gus Ferreira became a pastry chef, leaving Portugal for Australia and opening a Portuguese cake shop in Curlewis Street, Bondi in 1994. Today, Gus’ son Diego has kept up the legacy as head baker, making and selling these out of this shop now in Bronte.
The store sells to the public through retail as well as wholesale, catering and events.They make cakes to order, whether it be an Orange cake, Passion fruit & yogurt cake, butter cake, Carrot & pineapple cake, Chocolate, coffee and hazelnut cake.
We went especially for their Portuguese tarts. A beautiful flaky pastry with a sweet, egg custard centre and dusted with cinnamon.
We also had the “bread of God”, a coconut Portuguese brioche. This was absolutely incredible.
For more sweets, we also had the cinnamon donut as well as a donut with raspberry. This has a delicious filling, a good mix of sweet and . tarte inside a fluffy dough dipped in cinnamon. You also can’t go wrong with a regular plain croissant.
From the savoury options we loved their incredibly tasty caramelised onion and mushroom quiche. Whilst they had pies we didn’t get them this time but certainly are keen to try.
Kurt just wanted everything in the shop, but couldn’t possibly eat any more in one go. But the positive is, it means we will be back for more.
Shop 6/231 Clovelly Road
Clovelly
They all look delicious! It must be hard to choose. I don’t know if there is a Portuguese bakery near my home. I guess I would have to google it and find out. I do know we have a few Italian bakeries which are good.
Make sure to look up what you can find 🙂