The Best Specialty Food Store In The Entire World, According To Ina Garten

As anyone who watches "Barefoot Contessa" knows, Ina Garten prefers fresh, homemade ingredients to store-bought ones. But when she claims "store-bought is fine," Garten apparently has a different definition of "store-bought" than the rest of us. In an interview with Cooking Light, the celebrity chef revealed that when she goes to her local grocery store, she only shops in the gourmet food section.

Her store-bought staples, as she shared during an episode of "Barefoot Contessa: Cook Like a Pro," are items many people would consider specialties. Instead of salted or unsalted butter, she buys white truffle butter, and her go-to oatmeal brand is one imported from Ireland. Considering it would be hard to hunt down some of her favorite food products at a regular supermarket, it makes sense that Garten prefers shopping at a specialty food store. As it turns out though, the one she considers "the best in the world" is all the way in Paris.

Though La Grande Épicerie literally translates to "the big grocery store" in French, its size isn't the only thing that makes this culinary emporium special. The 2,900 square meter store, located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, is also home to 13 different restaurants and has a selection of more than 30,000 gourmet food products, many of which are made in-house.

So what does Ina Garten buy when she shops at La Grande Épicerie? Judging by her post on Instagram, in which she shared pictures of mostly pastries, the store's patisserie is seemingly her most-shopped part of the store. However she also highlighted the produce section and made mention of the wine, so clearly, anything at La Grande Épicerie is fair game for Garten. "La Grande Épicerie is the best specialty food store in the world! It's a full city block in the 7th and it has every imaginable wine and food you could want," Garten wrote in her caption.

Most people know Ina Garten as being from The Hamptons, but she actually lives in Paris part-time and has had a home there since 2000. When Garten described La Grande Épicerie as her "local grocery store" on Instagram, she wasn't exaggerating either. The "Barefoot Contessa" host told Fodors that her home is located between the 6th and 7th arrondissements, in close proximity to Bon Marché, the department store that houses La Grande Épicerie.

La Grande Épicerie is also steps away from Poilâne, her favorite bread bakery, Fromagerie Barthélemy, a cheese shop she loves, as well as a flower shop called Marianne Robic. "It's great because there's everything you could possibly want for giving a dinner party within a few blocks, and I love to give dinner parties in Paris," she said in her interview. Safe to say the food at those dinner parties must be good if she does her grocery shopping at La Grande Épicerie.