Macau’s Portuguese egg tarts – how British pharmacist launched Lord Stow’s Bakery 29 years ago
- Andrew Stow knew nothing about baking when he took a delicate Portuguese pastry case and filled it with British custard
- Today the business bakes 21,000 egg tarts daily to supply its seven outlets
In Macau’s Coloane Village the delicious smell of butter wafts through the air, luring customers into a small, unassuming shop. It is Lord Stow’s Bakery, famed for its Portuguese egg tarts.
They are irresistible – the egg tarts have delicate pastry shells filled with a creamy custard that is slightly burnt on the top. They taste buttery and flaky, while the custard isn’t too sweet.
It’s the perfect marriage between the crispy pastry crust and the wibbly wobbly custard filling. So to bite into a Lord Stow’s egg tart gives you that sensation of crispy and soft,” says Eileen Stow, managing director of Lord Stow’s Bakery.
The bakery in the former Portuguese enclave – a special administrative region of China since 1999 – marks 29 years in business this year. Eileen’s brother, Andrew, started the business making egg tarts, which are now famous all over Asia.
Originally from Essex in eastern England, Andrew Stow worked for British drug store chain Boots as an industrial pharmacist. He moved to Macau in 1979 to work for Anglo French Laboratories, and when the company left a few years later, Andrew decided to stay.