The Best Pastry Shops in Europe

Counter and queue

Most of the European shops on the list are small counters that sell to take away. A queue on the pavement is common in the morning, and the popular pastries are often gone by early afternoon. Some shops run on numbered tickets with a separate till for paying, as I Segreti del Chiostro in Palermo does. Kus Koláče in Prague bakes its koláče in fixed batches and posts the times on a board, and the queue forms twenty to thirty minutes before each one.

Local pastries

A large part of the page is shops known for one local pastry. In Lecce, Natale Pasticceria sells the pasticciotto, a small shortcrust pie filled with custard and served warm. Banketbakkerij Jan de Groot in ’s-Hertogenbosch makes the Bossche bol, a large cream puff coated in chocolate. Daubner Cukrászda in Budapest is visited for pogácsa, a savoury scone, and Ciastko z Dziurką in Warsaw for blueberry buns in season and for doughnuts on Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent.

Cannoli and syrup

Italian shops fill cannoli to order, so that the fried shell stays crisp. I Segreti del Chiostro does it inside a former Dominican monastery, and customers eat in the cloister garden by the fountain. Ginos Bakery, beside the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, does it at a takeout counter. Further east the sweets are soaked in syrup or milk. Alchemist Cafe Patisserie in Athens serves baklava, galaktoboureko and portokalopita in large portions, and Rigara in Skopje sells trileçe, a sponge cake soaked in milk.

Cafés and croissants

A few places are sit-down cafés. Groissböck in Vienna has table service, breakfast and doughnuts that are filled in view of the customers. Others are newer bakeries built around the croissant or the bun and sold with coffee: Freyja in Budapest, RØST Bakery in Tallinn, Bread 41 in Dublin and Overoll in Athens.