Britain shouldn’t be ashamed of its tarts

Has there ever been a more successful culinary invasion than the pastel de nata ? The flaky little Portuguese tart was virtually unknown a decade ago, except outside Iberian emigrant hang-outs like the half-dozen or so ramshackle but delicious lusophone cafes and restaurants on the South Lambeth Road. But even there the wines, the liqueurs, the croquetes de Alheira and the pan-fried octopus were the main attractions. The burnt pastry and wobbly custard treats were not.

They would be arranged in neat little piles beneath the strip lighting and see-through counters, unchosen and unloved by Britons, mostly consumed by the local Portuguese . Yet now every independent coffee shop has them. Pret a Manger has them. Supermarkets sell multipacks. Individual ones are available at Lidl for about 75p. The Telegraph ’s office café has them. Bakery chain Santa Nata has sold 10 million of them since launching in 2019.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that right now thousands of Britons across the length and breadth of the country, from Plymouth to Prestwick, Barnstaple to Bangor, are enjoying a pastel de nata or two. The nata is not an abomination. It has a pleasant mouthfeel. It is not overly sweet and the crisp, caramelised pastry provides necessary contrast to the stodgy, sickly egg custard. The issue with the nata is what it is replacing. Many other foreign foods have flourished on these shores, from the doner kebab to more recent favourites such as pho, bao buns or the growing popularity of Georgian khachapuri.

However all of these have added something to the national palate. There existed nothing in England similar to the doner prior to its arrival sometime after the Second World War . But before we had the pastel de nata, we had the custard tart, an Anglo-Norman invention dating back to the Middle Ages that was served up at the coronation banquet of Henry IV in Westminster Hall in 1399. Yet now they are very difficult to find. The nata’s colonisation of British baking has been so successful it has pushed the native tart to the margins.

It is virtually impossible to enjoy a traditional English custard tart with a coffee or a tea in a café in London or the major cities. Regional bakery chains such as Cooplands still stock them and two-packs are available, often semi-hidden, in the major supermarkets. But the status of the traditional tart has been much reduced. Even Greggs stopped making them midway through the nata invasion in 2020, although the chain has not yet begun to offer its Portuguese replacement.

What is interesting is that the custard tart is not obviously inferior to the nata. Granted, it is not as Instagrammable. The nata looks artisanal, theatrical, with its ever-changing, leopard-like, laminated caramelisation. The native tart is more uniform and fatter, with a paler, slightly medicinal-looking custard. But its understated appearance is because of its larger custard to pastry ratio. The egg custard puddle is the star of the show.

The crumbly shortcrust pastry is simply the container. The result is a much higher protein content, almost double. As we live in the age of protein, in which Doritos are offering muscle-building versions of its junk corn snacks, it is all the more strange that Britain should choose the tart with the most wheat flour. The only conclusion is that Britain is ashamed. It shouldn’t be. We mustn’t expel the nata, but we must find a way for our own native tart to stand proudly alongside it.