Queijadas de Sintra: What to Eat in Sintra

Queijadas de Sintra are small, round cheese tarts with a thin crisp shell and a sweet, dense filling of fresh cheese, egg, sugar and cinnamon. They are one of Portugal’s oldest pastries, made in Sintra for centuries, and along with the flaky almond-cream travesseiro they are the reason a visit to Sintra is as much about the bakeries as the palaces.

This guide explains what a queijada actually is, how it differs from the travesseiro it is so often confused with, the long history behind it, and exactly where to buy the real thing in Sintra town, ideally on a day that also takes in the palaces above.

What is a queijada de Sintra?

A queijada is a bite-sized tart, about five or six centimetres across, with a wafer-thin pastry case and a filling built on requeijao, a fresh Portuguese cheese much like ricotta. Mixed with egg, sugar, flour and plenty of cinnamon, it bakes into something dense, sweet and faintly savoury, more interesting than a plain custard tart. They are sold in little paper-wrapped stacks and eaten in two or three bites.

Despite the cheese, they do not taste strongly of it. The cinnamon and sugar lead, with the requeijao giving body and a gentle tang underneath. They are best fresh, when the shell still has snap.

Queijada or travesseiro?

Sintra has two signature pastries, and visitors mix them up constantly. They are completely different things, and most people buy both.

The travesseiro, meaning pillow, is the newcomer: a rectangle of puff pastry filled with egg-and-almond cream, created at the Piriquita bakery in the 1940s. The queijada is the ancient one. If you only try a single Sintra pastry, make it the queijada; if you have room for two, add a travesseiro warm.

A pastry with centuries of history

The queijada is far older than any shop that sells it today, one of the oldest documented pastries in Portugal and tied to Sintra for generations. Exactly how far back it goes is lost to time, but the town has been famous for it for so long that the recipe passed down through local families long before the modern bakeries opened.

Two names anchor that history. The Fabrica das Verdadeiras Queijadas da Sapa has been making them by hand since 1756, one of the oldest pastry houses in the country. Casa Piriquita, founded in 1862, took its name from a nickname King Carlos I gave its founder, and it was royal encouragement that helped make the queijada famous beyond the hills.

Where to buy queijadas in Sintra

The real thing is made and sold in the historic centre of Sintra town, a short walk below the National Palace. These are the names to look for.

• Casa Piriquita: the most famous, on Rua das Padarias, with a second branch nearby; the home of the travesseiro and a fine queijada.
• Fabrica das Verdadeiras Queijadas da Sapa: on Volta do Duche, making queijadas since 1756 and about as traditional as it gets.
• Casa do Preto: a well-loved spot a little outside the centre, popular with locals for boxes to take home.

Taste them on a day in Sintra

Queijadas are best eaten where they are made, in Sintra town, as a sweet break between the palaces on the hill above. The historic centre where the bakeries sit is the same place our Sintra day tour leaves you free to wander. Our guide to the best way to see Sintra in one day shows how to fit the town and the palaces together.

Our private Best of Sintra tour guides you through Pena Palace and Quinta da Regaleira, then gives you free time in the historic centre, exactly where Piriquita and the Sapa factory are, so a queijada fits naturally into the day. For the wider world of Portuguese sweets, from these to the custard tarts of Belem, see our guides to Portuguese food and the Pasteis de Belem.

Frequently Asked Questions

The taste of Sintra

The palaces are why you come to Sintra, but the queijada is what you will remember eating: a small, ancient, cinnamon-scented cheese tart that has outlasted kings. Buy a box fresh from Piriquita or the Sapa factory, eat them with a coffee, and try a travesseiro too. To fold a queijada into a full day of Sintra’s palaces, join Francisco on our private Best of Sintra tour.