Where and what to shop in Quito

Where and what to shop in Quito becomes an integral aspect of any trip to the city, transforming souvenir shopping from a chore into an adventure. Whether you’re seeking tokens for loved ones or a unique item to commemorate your travels, Quito offers a diverse array of options. Handcrafted arts and crafts stand out as not just purchases but as cultural artifacts, offering insights into Ecuador’s rich heritage. By exploring the fair trade markets located in Quito’s Historical Centre, you not only find beautiful, handcrafted items but also learn about the artisans’ stories, making each piece you take home that much more special.

Furthermore, you can support local artists and gain new cultural insight by buying from galleries like Sirka. Religion is prominent in Quiteño culture, specifically the Catholic Church, which strongly influenced arts and souvenirs. You could pick up homemade medicines and wine from the cloistered nuns of Carmen Alto or beautiful candles from La Vela Mágica. Finally, Shopping in Quito allows you to discover the city, learn about Ecuador’s culture and heritage, and take some with you.

Casa Gangotena assures you visit plenty of places where you can get the perfect souvenir to remember your trip to Old Town Quito!

Find your room at Casa Gangotena!

Chocolate

There are Ecuadorian souvenirs perfect for the whole family, were going to start with a classic, chocolates.
Ecuador has a well-documented, illustrious history of producing
world-class cacao beans and chocolate (while you’re here, there’s no excuse not to visit a plantation to see the beans!)

But while much of the country’s produce errs on the side of the traditional. In Chez Tiff’s there are inspired, creative, and fun homemade chocolates. The truffles are the main event: great Willy Wonka balls stained multi-colored by passion fruit or local liquor Blue Bird.

The little spheres come dusted with traditional ingredients like toasted quinoa and cacao. You can even buy your truffles in an edible box made of delicious chocolate or in the shape of famous figures like cucuruchos or Indigenous women.

Premium organic chocolate brand Pacari has won international awards and has made it its mission to bring Ecuadorian produce to the world. The pioneering label has hundreds of options in its flagship stores, with cacao from all over the country and unexpected ingredients like sea salt, chili pepper, and rose petals.

The option of buying sets of various flavored bars neatly stacked in wooden boxes makes Pacari’s chocolates the ideal gift. Experts are on hand to guide you through chocolate tasting, allowing you to discover precisely the combination of flavors that make you tick.

Top tip: The shop on one of the Old Town’s most emblematic streets is also the ideal spot to stop for a coffee or hot chocolate, having feasted on the wonderful samples.

Local Crafts

Tienda el Quinde – Venezuela and Espejo

When looking for souvenirs in Ecuador, you can’t go home without local arts and crafts. Located close to Pacari, Tienda el Quinde is a shop run by Quito Tourism showcasing local arts and crafts.

Here you’ll find high-quality socially and environmentally responsible products at fair trade prices inspired by Quito’s rich cultural heritage and traditions, natural environment, and modern art scene.

Pre-Columbian culture also greatly influences the artisan crafts available, including silver sculptures and jewelry depicting folkloric legends.

Top tip: As a tourist center El Quinde is also an excellent place to find out about and book tours of the city and further afield, while free internet and lockers are also available.

Madera Noble, Calle Junin

Tucked into Old Town’s most bohemian neighborhood San Marcos, Madera Noble offers a unique opportunity to meet local carpenter José Barrera and chat about his craft and the changes the city has gone through the decades that he has kept a shop there.

Here you can pick up one-of-a-kind wooden crafts, from chess boards and pieces to jewelry boxes and religious icons, or have antique pieces restored.

Situated right across from the delightful Plaza San Marcos, the shop could play a part in a more significant exploration of the neighborhood, where you will find historical museums, art galleries, and eclectic restaurants and bars.

Tianguez, Plaza San Francisco

Tianguez, a pre-Columbian word for a shopping center in the náhuatl language, is found right across the plaza from Casa Gangotena.

Part marketplace, part museum, part restaurant, this is the best place to check out Indigenous artifacts and relics.

Rooted in fair trade, this artisan fair supports communities from the countryside, city, and small businesses, promoting cultural revitalization and Ecuador’s historical patrimony.

The Mindalae Museum in the same complex celebrates Ecuadorian craftsmanship through the ages and, above all, its sustainability.

Top tip: Typical dishes from the Sierra, coast, and Amazon form the backbone of the restaurant’s menu, ideal for refreshment after your shipping trip.

Rosario Incarnación – Simon Bolivar y Cuenca

You only have to walk less than a block from Casa Gangotena to discover one of Quito’s most fascinating and idiosyncratic trades.

While the bulk of the commerce of Rosario Incarnation is selling and painting religious icons and statues, the largest of these destined for churches, the owner has another skill up her sleeve.

As well as retouching wooden figures, Rosario does the same for humans: painting over scars and blemishes, even on people’s faces.

While the results might not be permanent the procedure is far cheaper, and probably safer, than any other on offer, and demonstrates the craftsmanship and enterprise of this traditional artist.

Central Cultural Metropolitano – Garcia Moreno y Espejo

If exploring this extensive cultural and historical exhibits of the Central Cultural Metropolitano awakens a deeper interest in Ecuador’s heritage and secrets (which after seeing the ghoulish waxworks of the Alberto Mena Caamaño museum is likely), head to the museum’s bookstore.

Here you can stock up on all kinds of books, from picture-filled coffee table tomes to text-heavy reference guides, to hone in on your favorite aspect of Ecuadorian history and life.

Carmen Alto – Garcia Moreno y Rocafuerte

For many, the attraction of Quito’s Old Town is its incredible concentration of churches and religious buildings, and the unusual fervor demonstrated by the Catholics there.

An unmissable stop on the tour of religious Quito is the convent of Carmen Alto, home of cloistered nuns since the 17^th century. Aside from the church and museum, the adjacent shop sells religious knickknacks including artisan crosses, rosaries, candles, and icons.

Top tip: Head around the corner to Benalcazar and you’ll find the nuns’ turnstile. This is usually the only contact that the nuns have with the outside world, from where you can buy natural medicines and ointments made by the nuns with their own herbs, as well as their home-made wine.

La Vela Mágica – Pereira y Montafur

With religious ceremonies two-a-penny in the Old Town, there’s a high demand for candles, in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

La Vela Mágica (the Magic Candle) fills the gap with aplomb, producing some 300 candles a day during peak seasons of Holy Week and Christmas.

Opened three decades ago, the shop’s best-sellers are slim, colored candles, though large, elaborate flower creations known as cirios are popular, adding a Baroque eccentricity to any display.

Scented with coconut, cinnamon, sandalwood, rose, and patchouli, the candles aren’t the only thing on sale at La Vela Mágica, there is also communion wine, religious figurines, communion wafers, and scents.

Mercado San Francisco – Rocafuerte y Chimborazo

San Francisco Market, founded in 1893, was Quito’s first-ever official marketplace (as a sign outside proudly declares) and continues today to play an important role in people’s day-to-day lives.

Here, locals buy their fruit, veg, meat, and eggs, but for visitors, the Ancestral Medicine section in the back right of the complex is the most intriguing.

In booths bursting with fresh herbs, you will find traditional treatments for a litany of ailments: lotions and potions for heartbreak, powders for anxiety, and even mini-cleansing rituals using local plants to cleanse bad energy.

Top tip: In the shops outside the market along Rocafuerte you’ll find herbs, Ecuadorian fruits, grains, and seeds at bargain prices, as well as practical bits and pieces like sacks and rope.

Humberto Silva – La Ronda

More than an establishment on Old Town’s most iconic street, Don Manuel Humerto Silva came to La Ronda more than six decades ago, in his early twenties.

The former railway worker from Chimborazo province inherited a set of tools from his late father and began to perfect his artisan craft with tin plate.

Some of the tools he works with are on display in the workshop, while his prized soldering iron is kept at home.

With these, he creates enchanting toys: household objects for tiny hands. There are miniature ovens, fridges, milk bottles and grills, diminutive watering cans and vases.

Top tip: You can find the octogenarian craftsman in the shop every day, though he tends to close up around 3 or 4 P.M.

Heladería Dulce Placer – La Ronda

Not strictly a shop, Dulce Placer is an essential element of the La Ronda shopping experience nonetheless.

Upstairs of one of the quintessential shops along the street is where you’ll find this delightful ice-cream parlor, a family-run establishment with more than 550 natural flavors.

Top tip: Bag a seat on the balcony to watch the comings and goings of the street below, cone in sticky hand.

Calle Cuenca

If you’re traveling with kids, or have any back home who will expect gifts from your journey, look no further than Calle Cuenca.

The street is filled with fancy dress and party shops at reassuring prices, selling all kinds of superheroes, monsters, and princess’ costumes.

Wigs, masks, capes, and props are all part of the fun, and of course, come in adult sizes too.

Quito’s obsession with disguise is rooted in its religious and national festivities, where everyone, from babies to grandparents, dons some kind of extraordinary outfit.

Sirka – Calle Junin

Billed as the meeting place of craft beer and art, Sirka is a pub with a gallery, or a gallery with a pub, depending on your priorities.

Located on one of the city’s most bohemian streets, cozy Sirka showcases local artists and photographers in thoughtfully curated, regularly updated exhibitions, with pieces available at reasonable prices.

Top tip: After your purchase, be sure to make time for a home-brewed Sirka beer, chatting to the creatives who have made it their local drinking establishment.

Mercado Plaza Arenas – Luis Vargas Torres

It’s highly likely that you’ll Mercado Plaza Arenas with something you never knew you wanted or needed.

This locals’ market specializes in second-hand clothes, tools, and bits, and pieces: a mishmash of bric-a-brac where you’re likely to see sequined jackets next to roller-skates, crutches next to electric guitars, and piles of books, magazines, and records (yes, records!)

Perhaps you’re in the market for a niche television remote last manufactured in the 1990s, or a pair of ornate doorknobs that look like something you saw in a movie.

Like any self-respecting market in Ecuador, Plaza Arenas has its own juice bar and chapel, as well as a hairdresser, seamstress, and metal-works.