La Grande Épicerie in Paris is the ultimate food court. Imagine Whole Foods at the Ritz. That’s La Grande Épicerie. It’s choked full of delightful treats for lunch and dinner, it includes a very detailed International Foods department (Including Reese’s peanut butter and Orville Redenbacher popcorn from the USA), and an eye-popping candy section that will make you buy too many things to ship home in your bag.

Those at La Grande Épicerie are masters at display and use the power of three to woo and delight and to hypnotize you into buying entire collections of goodies.

And just when you think you’re done, when your cart can’t hold anymore goodies, they bring out the carolers to woo you further into staying longer.

Like other grand department stores in Paris, they offer you a delightful collection of catalogs to take with you when you go so you’ll be enticed to return soon.

Where you’ll discover a famous butter, so you’ll have to turn around and come back.

More about Le Beurre Bordier here.

Salted churned butter for that Orville Redenbacher popcorn you bought the first time.

Churned butter with espelette chili… so good you’ll want to eat it like you would a cheese ball.

Vanilla-infused butter for your pancakes. I mean, c’mon. Why did THAT take so long?

In totally, I went to La Grande Épicerie thrice over December. It’s like Hotel California. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.