WhereToEatNow Review
Confeitaria Nacional has been on Praça da Figueira since 1829, which in a city that burned and fell down in 1755 counts as very old indeed. The ground-floor shop still has its original gilded mirrors and carved wood, and the counter is stacked with the full range of Portuguese conventual pastry — the egg-yolk-and-sugar tradition that came out of the monasteries and never left.
The famous thing is bolo rei, the candied-fruit Christmas cake, which they have been making for the best part of two centuries and which the city queues around the block for in December. The rest of the year, come for the pastries: pastéis de nata that are perfectly respectable if not the city's best, and then the deeper cuts — toucinho do céu, queijadas, bolo de arroz, ovos moles. These are the pastries most visitors never try and they are the point of the place.
There is an upstairs room for sitting down with a coffee and a plate, which is calmer than the scrum at the counter and worth the extra minute. Order a bica and something you cannot identify.
Honest notes: it is squarely on the tourist path and prices reflect the address. The counter service can be brusque when it is busy, which is most of the time. And if pastéis de nata are all you want, Manteigaria does them better and hotter. Come here for the history, the room and the conventual pastries you will not find in a chain.