Joey Bats Café

In Portugal, one treat sits head and shoulders above the rest: pastéis de nata. These addictive little tarts, which were invented in Lisbon in the early 1800s, start with a light and flaky shell, which are filled with a rich and creamy egg custard before being baked until caramelized and eaten warm with a dusting of powdered sugar. They’ve historically been pretty tough to track down in the U.S…. until now.

Joey “Bats” Batista, the son of Portuguese immigrants, started selling his pastéis de nata at New York street fairs in 2016, using a traditional recipe developed by his mother, Isabel, and he opened Joey Bats Cafe on the Lower East Side in 2019. He describes his pastéis de nata (“natas” for short) as “warm creme brulee, wrapped in a flaky croissant," and while that’s a description that’s hard to argue with, these astoundingly delicious pastries are in a league of their own.