A guide to Portuguese grocery stores: stock up on tinned fish and more

01.08.2024 - 19:13 / lonelyplanet.com

Aug 1, 2024 • 5 min read

One of the first things I do when I arrive in a foreign country is to visit a grocery store. Apart from simply taking in the range of produce and products and getting an idea of what foods are important to locals, it’s also just a lot of fun to take in an entirely new range of brands and logos. As someone who loves to cook, I know that a grocery store visit also typically forms the last stop of any trip, a way of taking home some of the flavors, tastes, textures, and ingredients I encountered during my stay.

I’ve been visiting Portugal for more than a decade and have lived here full-time for around three years now and I still find grocery shopping here a fascinating cultural experience, one of the clearest reminders I’m not at home. 

The most traditional place to shop for groceries in Portugal is the mercado, or fresh market. Unfortunately, these are a dying breed. Although vibrant fresh markets can be found in cities including Lisbon, Setúbal and Olhão, today the vast majority of Portuguese people do most of their shopping at two types of venues. 

A mercearia is essentially the corner shop, a small, typically privately-run grocery store that has the essentials and also typically a decent selection of fruit. A good mercearia will also have a small vegetable section, a few types of bread, and perhaps even some cheeses and smoked meats.

A step up from this – at least in terms of scale – is the supermercado. There are a handful of domestic and international supermarket chains operating in Portugal, but it must be said that shopping at them isn’t always a great experience. Often understaffed and with produce that doesn’t reflect the country’s bounty of vegetables, fruit, cheeses, meats and other products, they’re a poor substitute for fresh markets. Yet there are some fascinating quirks. The Portuguese are some of the biggest consumers in the world, and even a small neighborhood supermarket will have a decent fish section, with a fishmonger at least eight or so types of fresh fish. There’s also almost always a dedicated corner for processing entire sides of bacalhau (salt cod) a staple ingredient in the country. With lots of connections to Brazil and Africa, the selection of fruit at a Portuguese supermarket can be intriguing. And this being Portugal, the wine is inevitably cheap.

Portugal is also home to a variety of specialist shops, although these are also being lost at a rapid rate. A manteigaria was formerly a store that sold butter (manteiga) and perhaps also deli-like goods – cheese, smoked meats, salt cod. Today, they’re often known as charcutarias. Butcher shops, known as talhos, thrive in Portugal. Traditional stores that sell bulk coffee and tea – often from ancient cabinets