In Lyon, France, a major change of the gastronomic guard is renewing the culinary credentials of the city that the famous food writer and critic Curnosky dubbed “the world capital of gastronomy” in 1935. After a waning period when several of the city’s most emblematic haute cuisine tables closed, including Leon de Lyon (now reopen), Restaurant Pierre Orsi and Le Gourmet de Sèze, a new generation of exceptionally talented and creative young chefs are coining a new idiom for Lyonnais cooking in the 21st century.
A refined strawberry dessert at One-Star restaurant Ombellule in Lyon, served in a 1930s Orient Express–inspired dining room of dark wood, frescoes, and claret banquettes. © Ombellule
Putting Lyon Back on the Restaurant Map
The success of young chefs Tabata and Ludovic Mey, a couple in the kitchen and in life, woke the somewhat wilted local dining scene after their restaurant Ombellule was awarded a MICHELIN Star in 2025. Here, they give pride of place to vegetables on its menu and propose delicate, precisely cooked dishes like Arctic char with a lemon-brightened buttermilk sauce with tamari (a traditional Japanese soya sauce).
The couple also runs Brasserie Roseaux next door, which showcases impeccably prepared classic French bourgeois dishes, such as a chicken and veal sweetbreads, vol au vent, turbot with a sauce bonne femme (a shallot, butter, fish and wine sauce) and a millefeuille for two. By respecting Lyon’s tradition of gastronomic excellence with their deeply disciplined technical skills and brightening and lightening the local flavor palette, the Mays established a new modern benchmark for Lyonnais cooking.
At La Meunière, a timeless bouchon setting frames generous Lyonnais classics served with all the warmth and bustle of a true local institution. © La Meunière
Lyon’s Reasonably Priced Restaurants
What’s most interesting about this new wave of restaurants is that their menus spin on the axis of a deep local reverence for tradition and terroir, a reflection of the intense contemporary commitment to sustainability and seasonality among young Lyonnais chefs. Many of these new tables are also noticeably more relaxed and reasonably priced than the grand restaurants of the past.
The allure of the Lyonnais bouchon, those cozy restaurants that specialize in offal and good times, resonates with a generation of younger diners, as seen by the fact that La Meunière, a charmingly retro address that originally opened in 1921, was awarded a Bib Gourmand this year (our distinction for good-value restaurants). In an increasingly globalized world, Chef Olivier Canal proposes a roster of generously served Lyonnais classics, including pâté en croûte, quenelle de brochet (pike perch dumpling) with crayfish sauce and tête de veau, sauce gribiche (slow-cooked calf’s head in a mayonnaise, caper and pickle sauce).
Other new Bib Gourmands in Lyon are driven by a luminous market cooking style that privileges freshness, texture and bright flavors. Dining from the regularly changing menu at Cinq Mains, for example, a starter of mushrooms, green peas, baby clams and green-pea sorbet was an intriguing edible cameo that intertwined the revivifying chlorophyl of the peas with the gentle salinity of the crustaceans. A main course of trout with green beans in fish broth with garnishes of a fermented cherry condiment and pickles offered a playful palette of different acidities and strawberry soup with strawberry-pepper sorbet was a bracing conclusion to a meal brimming with well-reasoned creativity.
At Les Loges, a MICHELIN-Starred table, chef Anthony Bonnet crafts precise, vegetable-led dishes in a Renaissance courtyard setting that balances heritage with quiet modernity. © Nicolas Villion
A Lesson on Lyon’s Secret Ingredient
The following day, an excellent lunch of pasta with lamb ragu, brochette of barbecued pork with sweet potatoes, roast pumpkin, and caramel tian with vin jaune and walnut vinegar at La Virée, reminded me of the most important lesson about Lyonnaise gastronomy I’ve ever had: On an Indian summer day more than 20 years ago, a very tall chef dressed all in black led me on a tour of the bustling stalls of the Marché Saint-Antoine on Lyon’s Quai des Celestins.
Here, he admired some fleshy feral smelling ceps, there he gave a playful little pat to a runny Saint Marcelin cheese contained by small round wooden box, and then he accepted a punt of raspberries as a gift from a blushing woman who cooed “Bonne journée, Monsieur Paul.” We sat on a bench overlooking the Saone River and shared the succulent potently perfumed raspberries, the best I’ve ever eaten.
“So now you know why Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France,” said the chef, gesturing at the adjacent market with a mischievous expression on his face.” I smiled vaguely. “It’s the terroir!” he said. “These berries come from the Ardeche and were probably picked no more than six hours ago. And we get mushrooms from the mountains, fish from Alpine lakes, and the world’s best poultry comes from La Bresse. We’re the most gastronomically blessed crossroads anywhere in France,” the late Paul Bocuse insisted, and many would agree, including me.
Chef Anthony Bonnet, who has just recovered the MICHELIN Star he’d held before his restaurant Les Loges closed as part of the renovation of the Cours des Loges hotel in Le Vieux Lyon, is similarly passionate about the larder of Lyon and its surrounding countryside. He foraged with his grandparents as a child, which provoked his curiosity about taste and, eventually, cooking.
Highlights of a recent meal in this dining room in the atrium of a galleried Renaissance mansion included trout with mange tout and a white-flower essence and Bonnet’s signature roast pigeon with wild garlic and mushrooms.
At Accentué, Chef Ashwin Vijaykumar and front-of-house manager Jennifer Palopoli serve vibrant, globally inspired dishes in a bright space, with an approach that remains refreshingly affordable. © Accentué
A New Frontier for Lyon’s Restaurants
Breaking with tradition, as seen at Accentué, another new Bib Gourmand, Lyon is also becoming more cosmopolitan. At this lively bistro in the gentrifying 7th Arrondissement, Indian-born Chef Ashwin Vijaykumar has won a following for his personal cooking using spices from India, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. Expect dishes like trout lacquered with miso and maple syrup and braised beef ribs Massaman (a mildly spicy Thai curry).
The edgiest restaurant in Lyon right now just might be Chef Bastian Ruga and Agathe Drevet’s newly awarded One-Star Circle, which pays homage to the American rapper Mac Miller. Ruga’s cooking is served against an aural backdrop of American rap music and is often inspired by North Africa and Asia. The menu changes often but dishes to look out for include sauerkraut-filled beignets topped with chien, a spicy, green Caribbean sauce and Arctic char with chickpeas and harissa cream.
As proud as the Lyonnais may be of their tenaciously well-preserved culinary heritage, the city has never been more gastronomically adventurous and avidly curious at the table than it is today.
Hero Image: At MICHELIN-Starred restaurant Circle, Agathe Drevet and Bastian Ruga, serve accessible, mostly plant-based cuisine shaped by their travels and French gastronomy, set to a hip-hop soundtrack and paired with organic, biodynamic and natural wines. © Circle
Written by
Alec Lobrano
Based in France since 1986, Alec Lobrano is a prominent voice on food; writing about gastronomy and travel with a focus on France and Europe. Originally from Connecticut, he has lived in Boston, New York, and London before settling between Paris and Provence. He contributes to titles including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure, and Saveur, and is also the author of several books, as well as a multiple James Beard Awards winner.
Dining and Cooking