La Grande Epicerie de Paris – A Temple To French Gastronomy
La Grande Epicerie de Paris at Christmas – Mark Craft, 2005
La Grande Epicerie de Paris takes food seriously, across departments devoted to cheese, charcuterie, bread, pâtisserie, chocolate, produce, prepared foods, wine, and groceries. Nearly 30,000 products range from French regional specialties to ingredients and delicacies from around the world.
Located beside Le Bon Marché, the legendary Left Bank department store, La Grande Epicerie combines an extraordinary grocery store with its own kitchens, bakery, pâtisserie, and specialist food counters. Come for a few provisions and it's easy to leave with champagne, cheese, chocolates, preserves, and something you hadn't planned to buy.
Inside La Grande Epicerie de Paris
Patisserie at La Grande Epicerie de Paris - LGEdP
Nearly 30,000 products fill La Grande Epicerie, arranged across departments for produce, cheese, charcuterie, pâtisserie, chocolate, wine, groceries, and prepared foods. Seasonal displays add another layer, particularly at Christmas and Easter, when chocolates, confectionery, foie gras, Champagne, and other specialties take over prominent counters.
Open kitchens and production areas are part of the store. Bakers work with dough at the ovens, pâtissiers assemble cakes and pastries, and chocolatiers produce chocolates in-house. The cheese, boucherie, seafood, and prepared-food counters put much of the French repertoire within a few steps of one another.
The grocery aisles go well beyond everyday provisions. French honeys, preserves, mustards, oils, salts, teas, biscuits, and regional specialties share the shelves with ingredients from Japan, Italy, Spain, Britain, and elsewhere. This is where a shopping list tends to become irrelevant.
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The boucherie at La Grande Epicerie de Paris - LGEdP
Much of the food at La Grande Epicerie is made in-house, with bakers, pâtissiers, chocolatiers, and chefs working in production areas throughout the store. Breads come from the ovens, pastries are assembled at the pâtisserie, and chocolates are produced in the store's own chocolate workshop.
The counters concentrate a remarkable range of French food under one roof: cheeses, terrines, charcuterie, seafood, prepared dishes, breads, pastries, and chocolates. Traditional recipes share the displays with seasonal creations and new combinations from the store's kitchens.
This is also where we shop for foods that are difficult to assemble from individual specialty shops in a single morning. A few departments are destinations in themselves, particularly the cheese, pâtisserie, chocolate, and prepared-food counters.
French & International Specialties
A boulanger at work at the ovens in La Grande Epicerie de Paris – LVMH
French specialties occupy a large part of the store, with regional cheeses, foie gras, preserves, mustards, oils, biscuits, chocolates, and other products gathered from across the country. The selection extends well beyond France, with substantial departments devoted to foods and ingredients from Europe, Asia, the Americas, and elsewhere.
British marmalades and biscuits, Italian pasta, Spanish olive oils, Japanese soy sauces, Mexican chiles, and American pantry goods are among the imported products on the shelves. The international departments are particularly interesting for ingredients that are difficult to find in ordinary Paris food shops.
What To Buy At La Grande Epicerie
Display of French gourmet items on La Grande Epicerie de Paris's truck - LGEdP
The fresh-food departments are where we tend to start, particularly the fruit and vegetables, breads, pastries, cheeses, charcuterie, and prepared foods. Pick up a croissant or pastry for later, cheese and charcuterie for an apéro in your hotel room, or ingredients for dinner if you're staying in an apartment with a kitchen.
The grocery shelves are worth browsing for French mustards, preserves, honey, biscuits, chocolates, oils, and regional specialties. Some are good candidates for the suitcase, but there's no reason to save everything for home. This is food bought in Paris to eat in Paris.
For us, it's also our go-to place for some of the best duck confit in town.
Eating At La Grande Epicerie
In the wine cellar of La Grande Epicerie – LVMH
Some of our favorite stops are at the food counters, particularly La Marée in the poissonnerie. Five seats at the oyster bar face the seafood counter, where oysters from Brittany, Normandy, Fine de Claire, and Gillardeau are served individually, along with seafood platters and freshly prepared fish dishes.
Sandwiches are another good reason to stop. La Petite Sandwicherie has a dedicated selection, and sandwiches are also made to order at the charcuterie counter. We've had particularly good ones made with superior French ham — simple food where the quality of the bread and charcuterie does the work.
For lunch at a table, La Table is on the first floor. The kitchen draws on products and departments throughout La Grande Epicerie; breads are baked in-house and desserts come from the store's pâtissiers. The menu changes with the seasons and includes French brasserie dishes.
Is La Grande Epicerie Worth Visiting?
The shellfish case at La Grande Epicerie - Mark Craft, 2005
Yes, particularly if food is an important part of your time in Paris. Few stores present this much under one roof: exceptional produce, breads and pastries, French cheeses and charcuterie, prepared foods, wine, chocolates, pantry goods, and specialties from across France and around the world.
We shop here ourselves, but La Grande Epicerie is also worth seeing simply as a Paris institution devoted to food. Le Bon Marché is next door, with Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Jardin du Luxembourg nearby.
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La Grande Epicerie de Paris – Practical Information
Practical Information
La Grande Epicerie Rive Gauche
38 Rue de Sèvres, 7th Arrondissement
Monday to Saturday: 8:30 AM to 9 PM
Sunday: 10 AM to 8 PM
Tips for Visitors
- Don't limit yourself to the grocery aisles. The fresh produce, pâtisserie, boulangerie, cheese, charcuterie, seafood, and prepared-food counters are among the strongest parts of the store.
- Stop for something to eat. Oysters at La Marée and a good ham sandwich from the charcuterie counter are two of our choices when we're here.
- Leave time for Le Bon Marché. The department store is next door, with fashion, homewares, beauty, books, and other departments spread across its historic buildings.
La Grande Epicerie de Paris website →
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