Au Marché European Market

This little shop is great fun! I love to stop in here whenever I’m in Downtown Lawrence to peruse their offerings. Among standouts are their chocolate selection (including Christopher Elbow!) and some delectable smelling soaps. They also have great food items that you can’t find anywhere else in Lawrence. The staff here is always incredibly welcoming, friendly and helpful. The prices are a bit steep for some items, but everything in the store is top quality.

Good choice of a few items… friendly staff

This long-​time Au Marche shoppers thinks they deserves a perfect rating for a lot of reasons, including great customer service, but mainly because they offer a wide range of premium local and imported food products in one location that are otherwise very difficult or impossible to find. If you like to cook, you can find some products here you’ll soon be unable to live without.
Pricey, yes, but look at a small sampling of things we think we can’t do without that otherwise would have us ordering online or driving to Kansas City.
More Than Gourmet red and white finishing sauces — essential in this house, make you into a brilliant cook.
Christopher Elbow chocolates and ice cream — so we don’t have to drive to KC
One of the best selections of fine sausages, meats and cheeses in town (try finding Raclette elsewhere in Lawrence)
Best selection of European chocolates in town
Select duck breasts
Duck fat! Talk to me, baybeeeeeee.
Orangina long before it was popular in the U.S.
Labello European lip care products (stocked upon request by yours truly)
The list goes on. They’ll also put together a killer cheese and meat platter for you over the phone for pick-​up, a service I’ve used a number of times.
In short, if you’re looking for a pretty unique food shopping experience, I can’t think of anything in Kansas City that quite matches Au Marche without driving around a lot. No, it’s not the size of Trader Joe’s, but that’s part of the appeal. It’s small, it’s downtown, and you’ll find food products here that are found nowhere else in the region.
Truffle sausage, anyone?

Au Marche is one of those little places that you would expect to succeed in a small, liberal college town. And indeed, it has. Downtown Lawrence seems to ebb and flow with success and failure, but Au Marche has been around for some time now.
First off, the service is always friendly. You walk in, get a «hi, welcome», and an offer of assistance in your searches. A simple «just browsing» will result in an invitation to look around and ask if you have any questions. This is the best way to experience Au Marche — go in without any expectations of getting anything, and just see what the heck they have.
And what they have is quite a lot, and quite nice. Belgian Chocolate that is spectacular and affordable in price, salty snacks of European origin that are sure to fill you with sinful bliss, and various sweets and savories from France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, wherever. Meats and cheeses abound as well.
And rest assured, Au Marche isn’t just limited to food. They have some nice soaps, they have some nice teas, and really just a well rounded selection of things to look for, be it for yourself or someone else. I believe I have seen gift baskets too which could always be a good gift for someone.

Au Marche is a blessing. The best, authentic cheese in town (Gruyère, Emmenthal, Raclette) real bratwurst, deli meats and European food items you won’t find anywhere else.
Don’t let the grousing about prices deter you. Whether it is because you can get it elsewhere or (more likely) you can’t, you will make the decision to buy based upon the delight you will experience when you relive a bit of your European experience at the dinner table. My personal observation is that the cheeses are very competitive with imported cheeses of equal quality. If you set a table for your family or guests with Au Marche deli meats and cheeses and Wheatfields bread, for a small share of what you would spend at an upscale restaurant, you will delight everyone.

Zipped over to Lawrence to stock up on some stuff at Au Marché and Brits (which adjoin each other). From where I live in JoCo it’s a quick little excursion — hardly any longer than going to Trader Joe’s at Ward Parkway!
Au Marché isn’t large but carries a surprisingly fine selection of Continental goodies. The freezer case is full of good authentic German style sausages (I came home with a package of weisswurst which made a good summer dinner tonight). There’s a nice choice of cheeses. Besides the weisswurst I came home with a couple of unexpected finds: a huge bottle of herbed mayonnaise for dipping french fries, courtesy of the Netherlands’ Calvé brand, and something else that escapes my increasingly sieve-​like memory at the moment. I noticed they had big boxes of hagel and chocolate curls for the homesick Dutch (they sprinkle them on buttered bread at breakfast!) and even some highly overpriced pouches of instant Norwegian Bergen fish soup! (That may actually be the finest thing in Norwegian cuisine — a fabulous milk/​cream based fish soup that will make you forget all about lutefisk. But you don’t need a powdered mix to make it! Trust me, it’s much better made from scratch!)
There are also fine European style cold cuts in the deli case, pints of Glacé ice cream in the freezer and a Tiffany-​like case displaying Christopher Elbow’s jewel-​like chocolates. You can definitely get your fix on yumminess here and at Brits, next door.
We do have to talk about prices: they’re high. But you’re out in the middle of America, for crying out loud, and there’s only limited demand for some of these items. So you’re going to pay a premium to satisfy your longing for delicacies from far away places! Of course you can find many of these items online, but in many cases they’re not really cheaper by the time you factor in shipping. And for frozen or refrigerated items you definitely want to shop locally!
Service is friendly and helpful. I haven’t tried, but if there’s something you’ve been seeking that they don’t carry I imagine they can try to get it for you.

Good selection of European stuff. Quite expensive for some things, but I cannot imagine they sell a lot of each item, so I doubt they are totally unfair prices.

It’s such a cute little shop! There are a few overpriced items that you can find online for cheaper, but they also have enough «unique» items that you’re better off purchasing from them. I enjoy their little chocolates and their posters. My partner loves the syrup mixture that you pour into water.
They also sell perishables such as cheese but I haven’t yet tried those. I’d like to start. What’s really nice is they’re next door to Brits.

Love the various soaps from France. They also have a wonderful selection of cheese & meat, including a small freezer that houses boneless duck breasts. In the winter, they usually have chestnuts from Chestnut Charlie, who may be roasting them outside on a Friday or Sat night. Delicious!

I am so glad to have a place like this in Lawrence. Don’t get me wrong, I love this town, but sometimes you just need an escape from corn and Kansas City steaks. Au Marche is an excellent getaway for prosciutto, cheese, and chocolates. The staff is friendly and unlike a lot of other «upscale» markets it really doesn’t seem uppity inside. Not somewhere I would shop every day… but it’s a nice treat.

This place makes bank just on the fact that you can’t possibly find such and such Euro offering anywhere else.
Except maybe World Market… I’d way rather support a local business but… Au Marche isn’t exactly selling stuff that is «local,» is it?
The prices just drive me nuts. Yes, I realize we’re smack dab in the middle of the country and having access to international products isn’t a given, but, uh, 8 dollars for a bacon chocolate bar?! Or a bar of soap?! Or a condiment?
That said, I give it three stars because the staff is extremely helpful and well, if I didn’t think ahead in time to order some stuff online, I guess I’d go here in a pinch.

This morning I wake up and I feel the need to cook one of my favorite dishes – Tortilla Espanola – and wanting to change it up a bit, I found myself needing cured chorizo. Where does one find cured chorizo in Lawrence? Well, had I not stumbled into Au Marché as part of my Mother’s Day shopping, I would never have found their meat counter which offers this hard-​to-​find-​in-​Lawrence treat.
Cured Jamon, chorizo and prosciutto are all offered, including mortadella and other Italian style loaves which provides a variety of meat options not found elsewhere. I may have shown up to purchase some of their top-​shelf Elbow Chocolates (which you know are damn fine if you have ever had the chance to try one) but walked away excited by everything else I had found – including the cured chorizo in the tortilla that I am eating as I write this.
Combine all of the above with a wide selection of other hard-​to-​find-​in-​Lawrence European products and you have the perfect compliment to the supermarket fare already available.

i like this place. and if it left lawrence, i admit, i’d be a wee bit regretful. lawrence is no huge metropolis and we have to get our euro-​licious eats where we can. it’s a small and festive stop downtown to get some of those fun things you just can’t get at the 19^th/​Mass Dillon’s. (No, that doesn’t mean they sell stouffer’s microwave mac and cheese, or the good kind of toilet paper.)
but… wow. if this place reduced its prices, i might stop by a little more often. i mean– i know it’s all imports. and i know the euro is flexing up on the dollar. but. i feel a little silly dropping $ 7 on less than a litre of french lemonade in lawrence, ks where a gallon of «simply lemonade» is a few bucks.
still. the fact that they sell sanbitter soda here and various kinds of kinder chocolate (for those who don’t speak german, this means chocolate made of kids… or something) keeps it close to my heart.

Definitely a store to stop in if you’re a foodie to any extent. Au Marche has European treats, everything ranging from exotic chocolates to spaghetti sauce to lovely L’Occitane bath products. This is definitely an indulgence store!
What caught my eye as I walked in were those familiar white and brown boxes from local chocolatier (well, KCMO local) Christopher Elbow, along with a case of his lovely chocolates and pâté de fruit. I *heart* chocolate, so I asked if they had any other chocolate to choose from, when I was escorted to the back. There I found the usually Lindt, Ritter Sport, and Vosges collection, but not my beloved Valhrona… I was a bit disappointed. Though, they did carry almond thins from a Belgium company (I’m blanking on the name right now) that I love! And I have never seen so many types of Haribo gummies in my life! (I am a sucker for those little bears).
Next time, when my budget bares more than a few quarters and some lint, I’ll have to bring some treats home

Next door to Brits, you’ll find European Market — a brick and mortar type shop that’s fit for those longing for a taste that they consider as «Everday European.» Here’s a rundown:
Soaps from France.
Cheeses from Germany.
Chocolates from Lindt.
Fleur de Sel.
Pasta from Bendetto Cavalieri.
Couscous from Isreal
Panchetta, Jamon Serrano (Spanish Ham), & Prosciutto
If that isn’t enough to start those feet walking and the car starting, then be sure to sample some of their Pâté de Fruit. It’s off the chart and gorgeously presented, begging to be photographed.

When I was working on Mass St. Au Marche was my once a day get away from the doldrums of retail. I’d walk, try a bite of whatever sample they had that day, and pick out some random imported candy or soft drink. Sometimes you be blessed with an incredible delight, but blindly choosing edibles can occasionally result with a twisted Yuk! a few steps out the door. It’s not a bad idea to ask for help. A great place to pick up some lively jams, pestos, cheeses, and meats. They have a small but superb little deli as well.