[Hondaracer]

Lyon is one of the most annoying places I’ve ever been to. A big part of it is this French attitude that is the same throughout the region

For lunch Restaurants open at like 11am and close by 130-2. However if you’re not there between say, 1130 and 1 a lot of the time there isn’t even food to be had anymore. Same goes for dinner, outside of like burger joints and chain restaurants almost every one off restaurant or “bouchonerie” the typical lyonese places only have 1 seating. They open at 7 they close by 930/10. If you’re there at 830 there is this kind of attitude like, why didn’t you show up earlier. Also the hours of operation in google are basically irrelevant. So many places that said they were open were not once we got there.

Also, as our Airbnb host said “places are so busy during the week, they close on weekends”… and then the guy we did two days of wine tours with, a local from the region was like “yea well.. now places are having pressure to open on weekends because of demand” yea.. no shit lol

Reservations are very hard to come by, I got the impression emailing places or even calling in English was an automatic denial of a reservation outside of the top restaurants there which want the international clientele. The small places you want to get into, I’d highly recommend having a French person arrange the reso and ahead of time if possible.

If you’re travelling for work I’m assuming you’re stuck staying in Lyon. However if it was me I’d 100% stay in a different, smaller city such as Beaune to the north in Burgundy or Vienne to the south in the Cote Du Rhone. These places felt so much more charming and quaint and offered much the same in terms of dining and bars etc. on a much smaller scale of course but Lyon really isn’t anything too special. Driving a car here is also a bit of a pain in the ass

Some recommendations:

Le Bœuf d'Argent - a bit fancier traditional cuisine

Food Traboule - this place is awesome, it’s basically a beer/food hall over 3 floors in the old town. They have 7-8 small kitchens serving all sorts of food you order from each individual kitchen and then servers bring you drinks. I got some ribs and nachos from a a guy cooking “American bbq” which was a huge relief after needing some variety lol, it’s also super affordable

Les Encaves - a more modern place not so much Lyonese but good

Le Café Des Féderations And Chez Paul - these places are the traditional bounchonereie (sp) right next to each other. I think you could go to either to get the experience. Pretty good traditional Lyonese set menus, good value for what you get

Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse - this is a market hall with lots of food options to eat on site if you want, def worth a visit

The metro in Lyon works very well and is a must-use because walking places takes forever due to the lack of bridges etc. if you’re outside the city centre if you can get onto the main metro line, I forget which one it is, which terminates at Perrache station, this line brings you everywhere you want to go in terms of old town and dining

If you have a car day trips to Dijon/Burgundy or Annecy/Chamonix are possible. Chamonix is basically a not as nice whistler but they have an amazing cable car that goes over the glacier and down into Italy. The whole reason for us going was going to be this cable car and of course it was closed when we went.. Annecy is superrrr nice though at the food of the alps, it’s a beautiful region.

Burgundy and the other wine regions are very hard to navigate if you don’t speak French and I think even if you do, If you don’t have someone to hold your hand and facilitate visiting wineries it’s quite intimidating. Id look online to book some tours and tastings. We went on 3 there but I wouldn’t really recommend our guide. It was OK but I think you could do better.