Grocery store tourism: the quiet art of exploring a city through its food shops. It's having a moment. Influencers are treating trips down the snack aisle with the same reverence they might reserve for museums. And honestly? They're onto something.
If you want to understand how a place truly lives, go where it shops.
The Tourist Trap Nobody Talks About
Most travel itineraries follow the same script. Landmarks in the morning, a well-reviewed restaurant at lunch, a cocktail bar by evening. It's a perfectly fine way to visit a city. But it's also a way of seeing a city's performance of itself, the version it puts on for visitors.
The supermarket doesn't perform. It just exists. And in that ordinariness, you find something rare: the truth of a place.
What a Scottish Supermarket Actually Tells You
Scotland's food culture is richer, stranger, and more fiercely local than most visitors expect. Walk into a Marks & Spencer Food Hall on Princes Street and you'll find shelves of Scotch pies, bridies, and Tunnock's tea cakes sitting alongside sushi and sourdough. That's not a contradiction. That's Edinburgh in a nutshell: a city that takes deep pride in its traditions while quietly being one of the most cosmopolitan places in Britain.
In Glasgow, the story shifts slightly. The city's West End delis and independent grocers stock Scottish craft beers, local cheeses, and artisan oatcakes you won't find anywhere else. Meanwhile, the city's extraordinary diversity is written into the international food aisles of its bigger supermarkets, a reflection of communities that have shaped Glasgow for generations.
You won't find any of that on a walking tour.
The Ritual of the Local Shop
Part of what makes grocery store tourism so compelling is that it's participatory. You're not just observing; you're shopping. You pick up a packet of Scottish oatcakes and wonder whether you prefer them with crowdie or just butter. You notice that Irn-Bru has an entire section to itself and understand, perhaps for the first time, that this isn't a soft drink, it's a cultural institution.
The act of buying something, however small, connects you to a place in a way that photographs simply cannot.
How This Fits into your trip
When you stay in a Moment property, you're not in a hotel room. You have a kitchen. A proper one. And with a kitchen comes the invitation to cook, to experiment, to buy ingredients from a local market and make something with your own hands in the middle of your trip.
Our Edinburgh properties sit within easy reach of some of the city's best food destinations, from the independent traders of Stockbridge Market to the quiet brilliance of the neighbourhood delis on Leith Walk. In Glasgow, the Barras Market and the ever-expanding universe of the West End's independent food shops are both within reach.
We've always believed that the best travel happens when the distinction between "staying somewhere" and "living somewhere" begins to blur. Grocery store tourism is just that principle, taken to its most delicious conclusion.
A Few Places to Start
If you're staying with us and want to lean into the trend, here's a loose starting point.
Edinburgh: Earthy on Canonmills is a brilliant first stop, an independent grocer with a strong local and organic focus. Further along, Valvona & Crolla on Elm Row has been selling Italian and Scottish produce since 1934, and a trip there feels genuinely ceremonial. For something more everyday, the Waitrose on Comiston Road stocks an impressive range of Scottish producers alongside the usual suspects.
Glasgow: Delizique on Hyndland Street in the West End is the kind of place that makes you want to cook dinner immediately. Roots, Fruits & Flowers on Great Western Road has been a neighbourhood institution for years. And if you want the full sensory experience, a Saturday morning at the Barras Market is as honest a slice of Glasgow as you'll find anywhere.
The Souvenir Worth Bringing Home
Forget the miniature Highland cows and the tartan tea towels. The best souvenir you can bring home from a trip to Scotland is a jar of Edinburgh-produced honey, a tin of Shetland smoked salmon, or a bottle of a whisky you discovered by accident in a small independent off-licence on a side street you only found because you were looking for milk.
That's the thing about grocery store tourism. It turns the incidental into the memorable.
So next time you're in Edinburgh or Glasgow, give yourself an afternoon with no agenda beyond a canvas bag and a willingness to wander. The city will show you something the guidebooks missed.
Staying with Moment Stays in Edinburgh or Glasgow? Every one of our properties comes with a fully equipped kitchen, so you have everything you need to make the most of whatever you find.
