We’re often asked by people staying in villas, “Where do locals do their food shopping?”
The resorts are populated with small supermarkets where you can get most of the essentials, but they are relatively expensive and lack a good range of products, so you won’t find residents shopping at them. We also don’t have huge hypermarkets in Lanzarote, so getting everything you need in one place isn’t always an option. That means that we need to visit several places to get the best of what we’re looking for.
It calls for some organisation, so we try to write a menu plan each week, and from that we can produce a shopping list. We’ve adopted the Canarian way of eating, which means we hardly ever used pre prepared foods, and enjoy fresh produce all the time, with each meal prepared from the base ingredients. It takes time, but food is an important part of life here!
Typically our weekly shopping will look something like this:
Fresh meat, fresh vegetables and salad – Congelados Roper
Ropers is on the industrial estate at Playa Honda, opposite Deiland. They have a fabulous fresh meat counter there, manned by competent butchers who will cut and trim your meat as required. Their fruit and veg is excellent, and they have a good selection of fresh herbs as well. There is also an interesting cold counter, with some unusual cheeses and cold meats.
Av. de la Playa Honda, 1, Playa Honda, San Bartolomé
Main Shopping – Mercadona and Eurospar
Mercadona is relatively new to the island and there are two stores, both in Arrecife. They have a big range of product, and are great value for money. The only issue we find is that there pre packaged goods tend to be “family” sized, so for example if you buy chicken breasts there, you’ll get enough for four.
We use the Eurospar in Arrecife, but there are also stores in Costa Teguise and Macher. Eurospar stores always have an excellent fishmongers, and we buy our fresh fish there always. The staff will fillet, gut and scale any fish for you, and even prepare it for the barbecue.
Eurospar Calle León y Castillo corner with Calle Bilbao, Arrecife
Mercadona Calle Tenderete, Argana Alta, Arrecife
Other stuff – Lidl and Ikea
We’ll also generally call in to these two – they are next door to each other. Ikea meatballs are a staple, as are their excellent range of crispbreads. Lidl is the best place on the island to buy good bread, shellfish (the big boxes of prawns are fabulous) and dairy produce like yoghurts, creams and cheeses.
Lidl Pol. Ind. Altavista, Calle Océano Atlántico, 10-11 Arrecife
Ikea Polígono industrial Altavista II, Carretera de los Mármoles, Arrecife
As you can see, shopping would take a long time if we did this each week, but we tend to alternate the shops, so that we visit each once or twice a month to top up on what each is good at supplying. It means we’ve always got great quality food in the house!
Perhaps you don’t fancy a BIG shop/ The supermarket in Nazaret is quite competitive and has great opening hours.