THEY SAID IT WAS A STUPID IDEA. NOW DE NATA IS TAKING OVER.

No restaurant experience. One Portuguese pastry. A recipe only four people know. Meet the couple who turned a childhood obsession into one of Poznań’s sweetest success stories — and now they’re coming for Warsaw.

Some business ideas sound brilliant on paper. Others make your family question your life choices.

Opening a business dedicated to one little Portuguese custard tart? That was apparently the second kind.

But the people behind De Nata weren’t listening.

Today, their pastéis de nata have found a loyal following in Poznań, their secret recipe remains under serious lockdown, and Warsaw is next on the menu.

Not bad for an idea that almost everyone thought was ridiculous.

IT ALL STARTED WITH BREAKFAST IN PORTUGAL

Forget fancy business plans and inspirational LinkedIn posts. The De Nata story began with family holidays in Portugal.

One of the founders was just 12 or 13 when he first encountered the pastry that would eventually change his career.

“My uncle would have pastéis de nata for breakfast almost every morning,” he remembers.

The memory stuck. Years later, so did the idea.

The funny part? He wasn’t a chef. He wasn’t even working in gastronomy.

He was a football coach.

He’d dreamed of playing football, picked up coaching licences and was heading down a completely different career path. But that little Portuguese tart kept calling.

Eventually, he answered.

EVERYONE THOUGHT HE WAS CRAZY

When he announced plans to build a business around pastéis de nata, the reaction wasn’t exactly a standing ovation.

“Pretty much everyone said it was a ridiculous idea,” he laughs. “My dad’s face when I told him was a picture.”

No professional kitchen experience. No established restaurant background. Just a stubborn belief that Poznań needed a proper taste of Portugal.

And then came opening day.

A massive queue formed.

Instead of celebrating, he remembers looking at the crowd and thinking one thing:

“We’re not going to manage this.”

They did.

And that first-day panic eventually became proof that perhaps the supposedly ridiculous idea wasn’t so ridiculous after all.

FOUR PEOPLE. ONE SECRET RECIPE.

Here’s where things get interesting.

Only four people know the actual De Nata recipe.

That’s it.

No casually sharing the ingredients. No handing over the secrets. And definitely no publishing them online.

Getting the recipe right wasn’t exactly straightforward either. It took weeks of testing, adjusting and trying again.

Could you make a nata at home?

Sure. Good luck matching theirs, though.

These days, the founder reckons he can spot a good pastel de nata without even tasting it. The appearance and smell tell him almost everything.

And despite eating what must be thousands of them over the years, he’s still not sick of the things.

That’s commitment.

BETTER THAN PORTUGAL? HE THINKS SO.

Now for the controversial bit.

When he returns to Portugal, he naturally checks out the competition. And he’s not shy about the results.

He reckons De Nata’s are better.

That’s quite a statement in the country that invented them.

He still has serious respect for Portuguese institutions such as Manteigaria and Pastéis de Belém, although he finds the latter a little too eggy for his taste.

As for the eternal question of classic versus flavoured?

The original still wins.

“Classic is classic.”

But that doesn’t mean De Nata is afraid to experiment.

THE ONE-YEAR PISTACHIO MISSION

Some people spend a year searching for love.

This guy spent a year searching for pistachios.

Not just any pistachios. The right pistachios.

For De Nata’s pistachio variation, finding ingredients that met his standards turned into a 12-month mission.

Quality mattered more than convenience, and he wasn’t prepared to settle.

It’s that slightly obsessive attention to detail that helps explain why a business built around one tiny pastry has managed to make so much noise.

TWO PEOPLE. VERY DIFFERENT BRAINS.

Of course, De Nata isn’t a one-man operation.

Behind the scenes is a team, with Zuzia bringing a very different kind of energy to the business.

“Zuzia is much more creative; I’m more of the backwards guy,” he jokes.

Different personalities, different strengths, one shared business.

And apparently, a pretty good partnership.

NEXT STOP: WARSAW

Poznań was only the beginning.

De Nata is now preparing to expand into Warsaw, with a location planned near Plac Zbawiciela, inside an older building in one of the capital’s most recognisable neighbourhoods.

Why Warsaw?

Simple. It’s Poland’s biggest market, and the timing feels right.

A bigger city. A bigger audience. The same closely guarded recipe.

For a former football coach who once watched a queue form outside his brand-new business and wondered whether he’d survive the day, it’s quite a journey.

And what does he think now about everyone who said the whole thing was ridiculous?

“I think we proved the idea works.”

Yeah. We’d say so.

THE POZNAŃ DAILY VERDICT

From childhood breakfasts in Portugal to queues in Poznań and expansion into Warsaw, De Nata is proof that sometimes the best business ideas are the ones everyone tells you not to try.

Four people know the recipe. The rest of us just get to enjoy the results.

OUR ADVICE? GO CLASSIC FIRST. GET ADVENTUROUS LATER.