Christmas D-2 at the Grande Epicerie de Paris which is celebrating its hundredth anniversary

The history of « La Grande Epicerie de Paris » is closely linked to that of Le Bon Marché, the world’s first department store still in operation, which inspired Emile Zola to write his famous novel Au Bonheur des dames.

Founded in 1852 by Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut, it revolutionized commerce by instituting free consumer access to the store, without obligation to purchase, while offering more choice to buyers.

In 1923, Le Bon Marché inaugurated in a new building, located at 38 rue de Sèvres, a first grocery store space of unique refinement where you could find tea, coffee as well as fine preserves.

In 1933, it took the name « Comptoir de l’Alimentation » and offered a wide choice of fresh products, butchery, tripe, creamery, early vegetables.

In 1978, the grocery store was closed for large-scale renovations. It reopened in 1979 with a doubled surface area and a new brand « La Grande Epicerie de Paris ».

2013 saw the creation of the restaurant « La Table » on the first floor and « La Cave » in the basement, rich in great exceptional wines but also bottles at a more affordable price.

The temple of Parisian gastronomy is celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year.
It has been able to renew itself over the years with an offer of more than 30,000 items which continues to expand.

There you can find the best of each region thanks to the product experts who travel across France as well as a myriad of delicacies from the four corners of the world.

Every day, pastry chefs, cooks, bakers, butchers, fishmongers and caterers strive to achieve excellence while respecting tradition.

For the holidays, customers come to stock up on luxury products.
The salmon department is impressive. Farmed salmon from Scotland, Norway, Ireland, the Pacific but also wild French smoked salmon from the Adour – river of the Aquitaine Basin – from Maison Barthouil, a Landes family business created in 1929, also famous for its tarama and its foie gras.

The fishmonger is overflowing with line-caught bass, soles, fresh bluefin tuna, abalone, sea urchins, large wild shrimp, langoustines and royal Breton lobsters, giant crabs… We notice exceptional oysters, powdered with gold, the Ostra Regal, fleshy and sweet.

At the bend of an aisle, we stumble upon enormous pot-bellied pannetones from Italy and then end up on the colorful aisle of exotic fruits – annones, guavas, lychees, mangoes, papayas, pitayas, rambutans, physallis – or imported from southern hemisphere, apricots from Australia, cherries from Chile, peaches from Argentina.

Magnums of vintage champagne line up superbly like soldiers on parade.
We dream in front of the 45-year-old Dalmore, or in front of the quadruple box of Château Lafitte Rothschild 2002, Petrus Pomerol 1999, Puligny-Montrachet 2011 and La Romanée 2004.
We end our taste journey with EDWART chocolates, a Parisian chocolatier since 2014 who only works with great wines.

La Grande Epicerie de Paris, a high-end delicatessen, emblem of French gastronomic know-how, a mecca for good Parisian cuisine which, on the occasion of Christmas and its hundredth anniversary, went above and beyond to delight the palates of gourmets .

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Gerard CROSSAY

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