What's the Best Grocery Store in Spain?
It's time. We have to decide, once and for all, what is the best grocery store* in Spain. Let's get started.
1. Mercadona “the Mothership”
Pros: Great prepared/frozen foods. Love the Hacendado line of generic items. Actually, does Mercadona even have name brand items? Public bathrooms.
Cons: The employees. Every time you walk in, it's an 80s movie and they're the mean jock/cheerleaders who never left their small town but still think they the s---. Ugh. Antipáticos total who actually put in the extra effort to throw your groceries down the belt, ideally on top of the previous customer's order.
The register set-up. Trader Joe’s is notorious for saving money on their stores by selecting locations with ludicrously terrible parking lots. Mercadona must do the same thing, but with the check-out lanes. It is so hard to maneuver your cart or stroller out the door, traffic jams of people coming in versus exiting, support beams blocking your way. The Mercadona in Nervión is the worst example.
Verdict: Customer service sucks, but I like the products. I still shop here, grudgingly.
2. El Corte Inglés Supermarket “the Whole Foods Market of Spain”
Pros: Great variety of products, well-organized, can find those hard-to-find ingredients and allergy-friendly products
Cons: The Corte Inglés supermarkets are always located in the basement, which is sort of depressing, and it can be hard to find the elevator to the grocery level from the entrance floor. Also no bathrooms on the grocery level which is kind of a challenge when shopping with the newly potty-trained.
Verdict: An important part of my grocery routine but not a daily shop, unless I lived closer.
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| A jamón in a Spanish guitar case 10/10 for presentation, Corte Inglés |
3. Super sol “The best”
Pros: This is my favorite supermarket in Spain. I feel happy when I walk in here. Nice neighborhood locations. You feeling thirsty? Stop in for a cold bottle of water and a caña de chocolate at the pastry window.
Cons: Not enough of them. Maybe the quality isn’t the best. But I love them anyway for reasons ineffable.
Verdict: If I could, I’d shop at Super Sol for everything.
4. Aldi and Lidl “the Aldi and Lidl of Spain”
Pros: It’s cheap? Supposedly good prices
Cons: It’s cheap. The quality of the food is substandard and the stores themselves are so dispiriting in their “thrifty” advertising. Look, I get it, we all want to save money, but why make it so joyless?
Verdict: I’ve left while waiting in line, even though I needed to buy something, just because it was too dreary to spend another second inside.
5. Día “the Food Lion of Spain”
Pros: It’s convenient
Cons: the quality seems lacking, but some stuff is the same everywhere—soda, water, bread. I do really like their tuna empanadas. Also it’s apparently the most expensive super market in Spain now? In essence, it’s a Food Lion, which is a supermarket aimed at poor people in the US, but is actually very expensive when you consider price and quality.
Verdict: I am not opposed to shopping at Día, but I wouldn’t seek it out, either
6. Prima Prix “The happy version of Aldi and/or Lidl”
Pros: Someone looked at Aldi and Lidl and said, “let’s make a low-cost supermarket that doesn’t make customers feel depressed.”
Cons: Lots of weird off brand items.
Verdict: I’d shop here, I guess, if I had to. Just don’t look too closely at the merchandise.
7. Carrefour “the 7-Eleven of Supermarkets”
Pros: open on Sundays, conveniently located in neighborhoods to pop in for a few items
Cons: quality is not the best, they seem universally unairconditioned, the bread is so meh.
Exception: The best supermarket I've ever been in Spain to was the Carrefour Market on C/Alberto Aguilar, it is a fairytale of a supermarket with wide open spaces, beautiful displays, and is open 24 hours. Here is the address (mostly so I don't forget): C. de Alberto Aguilera, 56, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Verdict: When you need it on a Sunday, you go to Carrefour.
The winner: SUPER SOL :) :) :)
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| Paella from Mercadona |
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