Almond cookies

Lei Kai-iok: founder of Pastelaria Chui Heong and its charcoal-roasted almond cookies

Lei Kai-iok

Lei Kai-iok is the founder of Pastelaria Chui Heong (最香餅家), a long-running Macau souvenir bakery. Founded in 1957, it is famous for hand-pounded, charcoal-roasted almond cookies (杏仁餅) and is the only bakery in Macau still making almond cookies in a charcoal oven. It began as a pushcart and a front-shop-back-factory workshop on Rua dos Três Candeeiros (三層樓街); per Macau Memory, his wife Lai Oi-chan (黎愛珍) carried products to restaurants by shoulder-pole. In the 1980s the shop moved to its current Rua do Gamboa (夜呣街) premises in the St Lawrence district. The brand is now run by second-generation Lei Chi-iong (李志勇) and third-generation Lei Chun-ming (李俊明); it was named among the first batch of official "Macau Characteristic Old Shops" in 2019 and received a Tourism Merit Medal in 2023.