A SHORT REVIEW OF GERMAN SUPERMARKETS… WITH ALESSANDRO G

One of my favourite ‘tourist attractions’ in any city is their supermarkets. For me it’s one of the best ways to see what’s different about a place. After all, cuisine is a major part of culture.

German cuisine is perhaps not all that different from the British menu, a meal often being comprised of meat and two veg; with stodginess as one of the most defining characteristics. But what is different about the German food experience is that German supermarkets tend not to be very luxurious or even pleasant. In Britain there’s a real spectrum, from the poshery of Waitrose and M&S down through Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda; and toward the cheap and nasty Lidl and Aldi.

Of course, Lidl and Aldi are German companies, so I expected that they would be ubiquitous in Berlin, but I also thought that there would be local equivalents of the more upmarket British brands. So here's a little review of German supermarkets I explored on my latest Berlin trip.

​​Lidl:

I sometimes shop here in London. They have some great prices on fresh meats, have an excellent bargain Prosecco and sell Ritter Sport for less than Cadbury (Ritter is better by the way). In Germany it was much the same as anywhere else - messy, full of brands you'd never heard of, and with never enough tills open.

Netto:​​

Another bargain chain, I tried Netto and found it almost exactly the same as Lidl, with all the products just stacked on top of boxes, but somehow the experience was more unpleasant than Lidl. Maybe it was just the Prenzlauer Berg shop, but it was dark and had so many items midlaid that it all felt chaotic. Oh and they didn't have any fresh herbs for sale! Wait, is that bourgeois of me to expect that in a Netto?

Aldi:​​

Yet another budget grocer, and probably the most widespread outside Germany, Aldi is just plain nasty. I'd frankly rather eat out of a bin than shop here. Perhaps they just don't care though... Recent reports have shown Aldis to be fronts for cocaine smuggling. In October 2014, German police found almost 330 kg of heroin inside jars of pickled garlic there. So who needs to have a clean and tidy shop with nice products when their bread and butter is made from the drug trade? You can get the same bargains at Lidl with a much nicer experience. Avoid!

Kaiser:

Kaiser, where you see Alessandro G posing in front of, was honestly the fanciest everyday supermarket I'd seen, but that's not saying much. It made some effort to display its fruit and veg using warm lighting and employing mist machines for shine, but in general the place was a bit on the dirty side. I don't mean 'dirty' in a hygiene sense but more of a 'can't be bothered' sense, sort of like a Morrisons in a forgotten northern English town, but smaller and more crowded. Perhaps other branches are better.

KaDeWe:

Perhaps it doesn't count to include KaDeWe, Berlin's biggest department store, but it does have a huge food hall on the top floor. I suppose it's like saying that Harrod’s is but a grocery store, but I'm sure some people in Knightsbridge do go there for a loaf of bread and a pint of milk. There's probably a few Berliners who do the same, but whatever your budget, this luxurious emporium is worth a wander through. I bought some roasted Spanish Marcona almonds and imported American pecans from the nut purveyor - incredibly delicious but the bill truly shocked me.

Edeka:

The last place I tried was Edeka, and it was by far the nicest. Slick, crisp and savvy, Edeka is the sort of supermarket where you don't rush to get out of. Similar in price to Kaiser but much more modern in feel. Again, it could be just the particular branch I went into, but I'd go out of my way to shop here.

I was only in Berlin for a week, and I was busy shooting for Elska, not touring grocers.. But if I had to live there (which isn't a bad idea at all), I'd probably shop via a combination of Lidl for basics and Edeka for the rest. Oh and just on an aside, my favourite place to visit supermarkets with tourist glee... it's Japan!

Elska Boy: Alessandro G

Photographer: Liam Campbell

Location: Berlin, Germany

Elska Magazine: Elska Ekstra 2.1

#BerlinGermany