The Best Bakery in The Algarve. Go Eat This.

The best bakery in the Algarve is Fabrica da Amendoa in Loule, about 20 minutes northwest of Faro. They serve amazing bread (Páo) and pastries which are authentic, local to the region, and worth the trip if you’re anywhere in the area. If you wanna know more about what to order in Portugal, why I think it’s such a great bakery, or what to do in Loule, Portugal while you’re already there eating, read on!

(and, if you’re sick of typing “what’s the best ______ in ______” and getting lists of 57 things, keep reading to help let Google know that real content is better than SEO clickbait.)

How to Get To The Best Bakery In The Algarve

Google Maps link to Fabrica da Amendoa

In the center of Loule, on one of the main roundabouts, and about 100 meters from the entrance to the famed Loule Mercado (The Loule Market) but as with many things in Europe, this best bakery in the Algarve is easy to miss if you’re hustling, so here’s a picture of me pointing to it so you know exactly where to find it.

Best Bakery in the Algarve: Why Fabrica da Amendoa Tops the List

Honestly, there’s tons of great bakeries in the algarve, and no one person would ever be able to taste them all – so this could also read “what’s the best bakery you’ve tasted so far?” But I also believe that when you typed in “What’s the best bakery in the algarve,” you just wanted to get your hands on incredible local breads, unique pastries you can’t find elsewhere, and a reliable place to stop – I can guarantee all of those things at Fabrica de Amendoa.

Amazing smells, bright and comfortable and pretty minimalist design, all highlight the reason you’re there in the first place – doughy things that taste good, with or without coffee to dip them in, probably with a combination of flour and/or sugar and/or eggs (and if you’re doing it right, definitely some custards.)

They do sweet and savory. They have daily staples which can only be found in this part of the world. They bake everything fresh, it all tastes perfect, the people are nice and speak in an insane number of languages, and though I’ve had pastries there that aren’t my thing, I’ve never had pastries that are bad.

What to order at a bakery in Southern Portugal

If you are like me, and you’re visiting a new place, you don’t just get “a” pastry, that is terrible. Ideally you are with a few other people and you can grab multiple pastries and breads to taste your way thru and find your personal favorite. And while I’ll have some specific suggestions below, I just want to show you what I purchased on a recent trip. I wanted a selection of stuff for a late morning pastry + coffee snack with friends, and I’ll show you what I got.

1. Two queijinho de alfaroba (the two little carob treats in a solo box)
2. One Pao de deus (it’s like bread – pao – but with a big dollop of custard on top covered in sugar – the custard does NOT go all the way through
3. Two folhado Loule (we’ll get to these below)
4. One fruitinha (the marzipan pear I’m holding for a close up. I know it’s not bread, but I love marzipan. So sue me.
5. One pastel da nata with nutella and sprinkles (I’ve had enough pastel da nata, I like the weird ones now, and cmon. Chocolate.
6. One eclaire just to see how they did with a non Portuguese treat.
7. One abatanado coffee (see below.)

How much does it cost to eat at a great bakery in Portugal?

All of the above was 11.40 Euro. Yeah. That’s a pretty sick deal.

Pao de Aqua: Signature Bread at Algarve’s Best Bakery

This site is all about the bread, so let’s start there. Pao de Agua is, to me, the perfect expression of bread. It’s flour, it’s water, it’s salt, it’s crunchy, it’s chewy, it’s got these big fantastic air bubbles inside of flavor, and it’s got a crust on the outside that reminds me of my favorite crusts on Earth.

I’m a sucker for a sandwich, and you can absolutely use it for that, but really the core experience is just to ask for “pao com manteiga” and then experience that whole deep-seated sense we have in our psyche that “bread = life” because somewhere in our ancestry it’s the thing that helped us all survive the winter.

This bread triggers that whole feeling HARD. Like, this is bread that is meant to satisfy the core need of bread on Earth, to sustain you. And dammit if sustanance doesn’t taste incredible (and shout out to all my ancestors who ate enough bread to survive!)

Folhado Loule: My favorite pastry In Southern Portugal

“The best pastry in Southern Portugal” – fixed it. Sorry Pastel de Nata, I know you’re more famous, and I know you’re having a moment – it’s definitely deserved. You’re creamy and awesome and your flaky sides were invented by monks. Excellent all around.

But there are a lot more pastries in Portugal, and in fact, many many cities have their own specialities which you just can’t get elsewhere. King among those is the “Folhado Loule,” the flaky folded pastry of Loule.

It’s an egg custard plus a little lemon and vanilla. It’s covered in sugar, but somehow it isn’t too sweat. It’s got these lovely flaky bites inside and I guarantee you’ll get crumbs all over you, but I promise you will not care. This is so much my sons favorite pastry, that my son continued to ask for them at every other bakery we went to in Portugal.

But if you got 10 minutes outside of Loule, you CANNOT find them. Go 30 minutes outside, and they WON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT YES I’M SERIOUS!??!!?

But if there’s one thing I want you to do, it’s stop in this bakery, eat this pastry, absolutely get a cup of coffee to wash it down.

How to Order Coffee In Portugal The Right Way

You know how the eskimos have like 20 words for snow? The Portugese are the same way for all the different names for how to order coffee. Like – they don’t just have a name for an espresso (here called simply a “cafe” or “eshhh-presso,” they’ve got a drink called “San principe.” That’s when you DON’T include the first 10-12 drops of the espresso shot, since they are slightly weaker till the flow gets going, and you get a perfectly strong espresso shot. How genius is that?!

(FYI – don’t try to order that north, they use a different name for it, and I don’t know what it is.)

If you’re an American (hello!) you won’t need to go farther then the following 5 types of coffee order:

1. Cafe (espresso) – you know what this is.
2. Galao – basically a latte.
3. Cafe com leit – coffee with milk
4. Abatanado – this is my go to. It’s either like an extremely long espresso pour, or an extremely short americano. So it’s not watered-down and crappy like that awfulness you get from Starbucks (ONE SHOT?! WITH 12 OUNCES OF WATER?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!)

Any of these drinks can be modified for the amount of water simply by adding the terms Cheio (SHAY-yoo) or Meia (MAY-yah) which mean “full” and “half respectively. That means “abatanado cheio, por favor” is gonna get you a pretty full 6 ounce cup of coffee, which is as far as I’m concerned the most perfect coffee on Earth.

Also, I know this is about the best bakery, but there is no such thing as the best coffee. They have a million ways to order it, and I have gotten perfectly pulled espressos from the fanciest hotels and the crappiest gas stations – no joke. Wherever you get coffee you’ll be fine.

Top Things To Do While You’re In Loule, Portugal

Loule is a town of somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 people, depending on how you define it and who you ask. But when you compare how much there is to do here with a town of similar size in America, there is no comparison. There are literally dozens of cafes, probably a hundred restaurants. Compare that to Xenia, Ohio and – just, there’s more. But if you want to do things BESIDES eat while you’re here, I’ve got a few suggestions. I’ll also include some affiliate links to direct tours of these places if you’re the kind of person who likes to book tours.

The Mercado (market)

Two ways to do this. Any day of the week, this old school market is open, with tons to eat and buy, starting with the incredible fresh fish. But it’s also just wonderful to wander in, through and around. It’s about 100 meters from the bakery (with like 5 more bakeries of it’s own but don’t you go to them for God’s sakes don’t you dare fill up without going to Fabrica de Amendoa) and it’s super cute.

The other way to do this is on Saturdays, when Loule quadruples in size as people come for the big (what I would call) Farmer’s Market. Tons of stands, every booth inside the mercado filled, every area outside filled with temporary stalls and stands, plus the crafts and arts and all the things – but obviously lots of food. This is cool! But it’s a bit too crowded for the thing which I think you want – which is “a beautiful 35 minutes with a great cup of coffee, a pause in your morning, and a pastry or piece of bread that makes you happy and you can savor.”

Weekdays here are for savoring. Saturdays are for bustling.

The Castle

What, you’re gonna have a town in Portugal and NOT have a castle in it? Are you crazy?

The truth is, the Castle is really more of a tower remnant wall that houses a small but well done museum, and creates a beautiful centerpiece for the town to be built around. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to miss amid the tiny winding streets, but you’ll also be amazed at how good it looks (thank you 21st century rehabilitations of old buildings!)

The Salt Mines

My 11-year-olds favorite part of Loule, take a trip underground to the old salt mines, kids can run around like crazy in these expansive caves, take a bunch of salt home with them (if you’re in a rental car, be prepared to clean out 2x as much as you would be cleaning sand from the beach.)

Festas (festivals) which happen like every week

There is a dithering number of festivals (does using dithering prove I’m not ChatGPT, or are you like “no human says dithering anymore?” anyway I said it.)

Music festivals, chocolate festivals, tennis, running, there’s one where they bake a massive fruitcake that takes up the whole street, arts, entertainment, foods, etc. They are really nonstop, so just check the calendar because you might be able to have a little extra fun on your trip and see a slightly quirkier side of this amazing city.

Final thoughts about the best bakery in the Algarve

I have probably eaten at around 50 bakeries so far, and I’ve gotten recommendations for and against others. I am under no delusions that I might very well be missing an amazing one, but again, my point here is to share a bakery that I personally have enjoyed on every trip – that’s a high bar, and Fabrica da Amendoa meets it.

If you got, lemme know how you feel about it, and hope you end up fatter after your trip than you started.

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