Here’s how to shop for groceries in Italy like a local

03.09.2024 - 22:08 / lonelyplanet.com

Sep 3, 2024 • 6 min read

A stop at the grocery store is a ritual whenever I arrive in and depart from Italy, where I’ve lived on and off for years.

My return visits to Sicily always begin with stocking up on the staples: milk, coffee and pasta. Then, before I leave, I stuff my suitcase with specialty items to take back. 

I’m not the only one who carves out precious time in Italy for a visit (or several!) to the grocery store: in recent years, videos about Italian supermarkets have racked up millions of TikTok views. Whether you visit an ultra-modern Carrefour or a traditional open-air market, you’ll get a sense of how Italians actually shop, eat and, well, live. It’s a cultural immersion of sorts. 

Even better, there’s the tangible and delicious outcome of any grocery excursion – whether you snag miniature ready-to-drink Campari sodas or high-quality, low-cost slices of prosciutto crudo. Any visit to an alimentari (grocery store), outdoor market or even a street-corner vendor will give you a true taste of the country’s defining cuisine. 

Options for Italian food shopping fall under a few categories, differentiated by size, scope and quality. The broadest, most universal of the group includes major European and Italian supermarket chains, such as Conad, Lidl and Carrefour. These all-encompassing stores sell everything from meats, breads and frozen foods to hard liquor, beer and toiletries. Depending on where you go in Italy, you may encounter these chain stores in smaller, pared-down versions that provide easy access to baseline items. Carrefour, for instance, offers the more compact Carrefour Express.

If you’re shopping for a specific food, it’s best to try a specialty shop instead. Such stores include the macelleria, or butcher shop; the pasticceria for sfogliatelle, cannoli and other pastries; the panetteria or panificio, which focuses on bread products; the enoteca for wine; and the pescheria, where heaps of whole fishes are preserved under ice. Because such shops focus on just one culinary genre, they tend to produce better-quality groceries than their prepackaged counterparts at the supermarket. 

Categorized somewhere between the major chains and the specialty shops, locally owned alimentari sell select groceries on a smaller scale than Italy’s supermercati.  

For those who’d rather shop outside, head to any of Italy’s lively food markets, which focus on whatever’s in season and of the region. Come springtime, you’ll peruse stalls of matte-green artichokes and zucchini flowers, while Nutella-stuffed cornetti (croissants) and Parmesan wedges are mainstays year-round. Some markets, including Florence’s Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio, are indoors and also sell pre-made foods, which means you can snack as you