How to shop at Waitrose (2024)

Over the years, I have spent a pretty penny on therapy. I have also spent a lot of money in Waitrose, of which there is a big branch that I like to call a ‘flagship’, very close to my flat. Of the two, therapy and Waitrose, it is probably Waitrose that has provided the most mental relief and has certainly been better value overall. Items may cost a bit more than they do at other supermarkets, but it’s free to enter the shop and there is no time limit on browsing, peering closely, or fondling the goods.

Waitrose has soothed me over the years in several ways. There’s its soft but creative approach to consumer delight – the very best end of market economics. If women have famously maxed out their credit cards on shoes and candles to attain peace and escape, I find Waitrose’s startling array of goods a similar shrine to desire, whim and pleasure. Shopping at Waitrose is a release of sorts.

Waitrose is not a shop that rewards a quick in and out, which is why I struggle to see the point of its Little Waitrose offshoots. No: one must leave time for chatting to the melange of local mums, neighbourhood old ladies and people one hasn’t seen in years but with whom one might once have gone on a date.

Waitrose isn’t perfect, and perhaps its flaws are part of its holistic appeal, making it more like a person, or a family. But those flaws are numerous enough to mean one does have to know how to shop there. Overall, though, one of the nice things about Waitrose is that its own-brand stuff is well-made – there are very few of the horrors (corn syrup, invert this or that, E number so and so) that turn up with amazing regularity in, say, American aisles.

Here’s how to shop at Waitrose: what to go for and what to avoid. The own-brand ‘posh’ cheeses are very good, so if short of time before a party, go right to that aisle. Winners every time are the Cornish Quartz cheddar, the smoked goat’s cheese gouda, the soft deep bovine chaource, the comté and the buffalo mozzarella. They’re all in the Number One range, of which more later.

The deli aisle isn’t what it once was (fat smoked chicken breasts and posh, additive-free turkey chunks are gone). But there are still some must-haves: guacamole, anchovies, and garlic- and jalapeño-stuffed olives. Waitrose is exceptionally keen on pork – with cured sausage and chorizo popping up in multiple aisles and displays. Of this barrage, the saucissons with comté and truffle are the best, chopped up fine and served with some of that Number One cheese and one of the cheapest sherries stocked – my favourite is Williams and Humbert Alegria Manzanilla (£6.99).

The ‘Cooks’ Ingredients’ line is perhaps the signal jewel of Waitrose. This is where one finds condiments to suit any recipe and more. The other day I popped a jar of garlic paste and one of umami, a magimix of mushroom, garlic, anchovy and spices, in my basket. A sample of the dazzling selection includes soffrito passata, smokey chipotle paste, white miso paste, ketjap manis, tamarind paste, gochujang paste, tikka paste, jerk marinade paste, mango amba sauce and countless more jars and bottles, wines and sauces and pastes, almost all £2 or under. Waitrose’s ready-meal game is also impressive, from Singapore noodles to a wheatberry and kale mix to a duo of Gressingham duck legs already in spiced oil, ready for the oven.

Wine is something I have spent a lot of time perusing in Waitrose because I find it less openly exploitative than a wine shop where it’s almost impossible not to be bamboozled and overpay. I have come to the conclusion that it is possible to spend £16 and get a good bottle, and for £20 to £25, a very good one, though at £25 you’re running a risk of disappointment, as I’ve found with the Barolos, for instance. I have discovered some excellent bottles in the Fine Wines section, especially Chateau de Rochemorin Pessac-Leognan (£19.99; could be £100) Noble Vines pinot noir and sundry dry rieslings from £14 and up. I sometimes splurge on an Amarone, not as good as what I’ve had in Venice, but not too bad for the price (£20, odd).

As for what to avoid, its soups are one of its great travesties, having gone hopelessly downhill, from its own brand to its imports, like Yorkshire Provender (snore). In the early 2000s, there was a fabulous gazpacho and also a chickpea soup I used to eat cold for breakfast – neither seen nor heard from in years.

Of more urgent no-go zones, there is – to the bewilderment of many – the bakery. The bread, patisserie, cookies, cakes and so-on are embarrassing and not a patch on M&S. The bread is never fresh because they’ve got rid of their in-store bakeries. This then applies to dry, limp viennoiserie. Those after a moist cake or biscuit must take their chances with pre-packaged ones, which are all embarrassingly bad – dry, over sweet, like something from the 1970s, as if the wondrous perpetual revolution in British supermarket gastronomy never happened.

Produce can be hit or miss. I’ve sometimes struggled to find a decent avocado, ripe but not pulverised and grey. Peaches and nectarines can be good or terrible. The pre-packaged fruit is where Waitrose excels – the chopped pineapple, the passion fruit and mango mix, the big boxes of pomegranate which goes beautifully with Greek yoghurt.

Waitrose has struggled with its breakaway lines. Number One is a strange conceit, and doesn’t quite swing it with me. Shouldn’t the whole point of Waitrose be that it is Number One? The ‘Essential’ line is amusing – is tiramisu ‘essential’? Perhaps. But it’s a bit like saying, ‘I’m the rubbish version’. For certain things, Essential makes sense – cottage cheese, dishwasher tablets, custard creams. For others, it’s simply off-putting because, after all, if you’re in Waitrose, you do want something that not only tastes OK but looks appealing.

The same applies to Waitrose’s strange yellow-label displays – shopping trolleys left near the front loaded with wilting or going-off veg and random other things. One can get some good deals from there, but they are so clearly on their way out, one rather feels they should be given away for free. And if I wanted cheap short-life veg I’d go for Aldi next door. But I very rarely want short-life wilty veg, and I very rarely, therefore, go to the Aldi next door – as my wallet can attest.