Flour hunting outside Lisbon: a super day trip from Lisbon with kids

Our flour story - why we make our own bread

When we opened Tings in 2017, we started baking our own bread for breakfast. Guests were impressed and some even said it was the best in Lisbon, which honestly shocked me because it showed how few places still made their own bread.

I was not happy with “good enough”. I knew that with the right flour, the bread would be much better. After about a year, I got the name of a small mill where Filipe the owner and chef af the best fish restaurant in Lisbon – Taberna do Mar gets his flour: Farinhas Paulino Horta up in Cabeços, Alenquer.

I called them and we drove up the next day. The visit was such a positive surprise that we turned it into a full day out: from the windy hills and old mills around Cabeços, across the countryside, and all the way to the Atlantic. We ended up swimming, having dinner with our Italian friends in Ericeira and staying the night to do a bit of “hotel research”. One of the advantages of our job.

Since then, Paulino Horta has been our mill. We go there whenever we can.

And “Visit a Portuguese flour mill” we always recommend families who are looking for a Kid‑friendly day trip Lisbon.

A real working mill less than 40 minutes from Lisbon, surrounded by hills, wind and small villages, and with beaches just a short drive away is a perfect road trip by car.

A few months ago, I stumbled on a story in US food magazine MOLD about the sad state of most Portuguese flour and the revival of heritage grains. The funny part is that Julia Georgallis, the journalist, ends up at the exact same mill we’ve been using all these years:

When I ran my small baking business in Lisbon, I was often pointed in the direction of one Portuguese mill that survived Salazar’s cull — the 300‑year‑old, family‑run Farinhas Paulinho Horta. Having met owner Paulo Horta when he hand‑delivered bags of flour to my doorstep, I found him an inspiring character: he could talk for hours about flour, heritage grains and keeping old Portuguese wheat like saloia alive.

Julia Georgallis MOLD 04.01.'21

Reading that felt like someone had written down what we’ve been saying since we opened Tings. Portugal has amazing bread traditions, but for decades the politics and the industry pushed everything towards cheap, over‑processed flour. Mills like Paulo’s are among the few that survived that period and still do things the old way, mixing traditional stone milling with just enough modern machinery to keep going.

When our friends opened La Matta only 100 meters from our door in Graça, I insisted they should get their flour from Paulo as well. Today they make what we think is Lisbon’s best pizza, and we no longer have to drive our little Fiat 500 to the mill to pick up sacks of flour. The truck delivers to La Matta, and we just “piggyback” on their order.

This is how Graça works and how Tings works: we keep it local, we share the good stuff with our neighbours, and we try to support the people who care about what they do. In our case, that means a 300‑year‑old mill on a windy hill, our own bread in the morning, and great pizza just around the corner

We getting closer - Farinhas Paulina Horta is surrounded by beautiful Mills.

Annette is heading for Farinhas Paulina Horta beautiful Mill that greets all visitors.

Blast from the past, how the worked with flour 300 years back

The old flour bags.

Stairway to Heaven. Farinhas Paulina Horta beautiful Mill that greets all visitors.

Don't hesitate to ask for a presentation...

All families should go there

Portugal is a small country and perfect for family road trips: short distances, lots of things to see on the way, beaches close by and cozy, lively cities with plenty of kid‑friendly places to eat. If you have a car, you can easily combine “proper sightseeing” with something a bit different, like a stop at Farinhas Paulino Horta, only about 30–40 minutes away depending on where you are around Lisbon.

Kids get restless in the car, and that’s where places like this mill are magic. They can see real stones grinding grain, flour dust in the air, sacks everywhere, and an old building that has been working for around 300 years. Afterwards, you just continue your trip to the coast, to a town square for ice cream, or up north towards Porto.

And when you are back home and go through the photos from your trip, the mill visit is a perfect excuse to keep the experience alive. Use it to make your own bread together with the kids and tell them: this is the flour story from that old mill outside Lisbon.

Enjoy,

Thomas