Food of the week: the world's best food shops

Show off your good taste by picking up an edible souvenir of your travels. Andy Lynes chooses the best food shops

Even if you are just visiting, browsing the shelves of food shops is a must for any travelling gourmet. So pick up a gastronomic souvenir at our pick of some the world's best food halls.

A visit to The Food Hall at David Jones (00 61 2 9266 5544; davidjones.com.au), 65-77 Market Street, Sydney, with its own champagne and oyster bar and 250 different types of bread, doesn't just sate the appetite. The elegant interior design is a feast for the eyes as well.

Julius Meinl (00 43 1 532 3334; meinlamgraben.at), Kohlmarkt, has been Vienna's gastronomic hotspot since it opened in 1862. Now it sells over 16,000 delicacies sourced from all over the world, including Tasmanian honey and single plantation coffee, which you can take home in one of its distinctive red bags.

You can find the best Andalucian produce including wines, brandies, oils and vinegars at The Gourmet Club Barcelona (00 34 933 063 800; elcorteingles.es) in the flagship store of the Spanish department store El Corte Inglés, Placa de Catalunya 14, Barcelona.

Residents of San Francisco can pick up everything from local artisan cheeses to fine Scharffen Berger chocolates at the magnificently renovated Ferry Building Marketplace, One Ferry Building (00 1 415 693 0996; ferrybuilding marketplace.com), Embarcadero, San Francisco.

With fresh fish arriving daily from Cornwall, aged Luing beef on the butcher's slab and artisan organic pork pies on the shelves, the recently refurbished food hall at Fortnum and Mason (020-7734 8040; fortnumandmason.com), 181 Piccadilly, London, is one of the best places to pick up British gourmet produce.

La Grande Epicerie, Bon Marché, 38 rue de Sèvres, Paris (00 33 1 44 39 81 00; lagrandeepicerie.fr) brings a world of gourmet produce to Left Bank shoppers including Welsh mineral water, Spanish olive oil and French cheeses.

Make a beeline for the Delicatessen Floor at Kadewe (00 49 30 2121 0; kadewe-berlin.de), Kaufhaus des Westens, Tauentzienstrasse 21-24, Berlin. It's one of Europe's largest gourmet food halls with plenty of room to stock enough species of un-endangered fish including witch flounder and gurnard to keep even the most environmentally conscious foodie happy.

Run out of tinned herring? Then head for the food hall at Magasin du Nord (00 453 311 4433; magasin.dk), Kongens Nytorv 13, Copenhagen, where there are around 100 different brands on offer.