A guide to Lyon, where classic French food is ready for a new era

A mural of Paul Bocuse, the Lyon-based father of nouvelle cuisine, watches over Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse on Cours Lafayette. It’s a gourmet take on a food market, where meals might start with frogs’ legs and end with a pink praline brioche. It’s also a good snapshot of this city in southeast France: a gastronomic powerhouse whose reputation was built by homely bouchon taverns and cemented by inventive Michelin-listed addresses — Paul Bocuse’s own restaurant still holds two stars.

Much like the food it serves, Lyon is made up of fine ingredients. The rivers Rhône and Saône flow through the city and merge at La Confluence district. Two viticultural regions, Beaujolais and the Rhône Valley, provide such a steady flow of wine it’s often joked there’s a third waterway. The city’s history is seen across its nine arrondissements, which have Roman theatres, baroque, renaissance and gothic buildings, and even an art deco skyscraper. The central districts are flanked by the hills of Fourvière and Croix-Rousse, the first crowned by a basilica, the second home to former silk workshops.

During the early 1800s, at the height of Europe’s silk era, weaving was revolutionised in these studios with Jacquard looms, which were invented here and made the practice more efficient. History books say this was the city’s heyday, when merchants carried pearly textiles through its traboules (covered passageways), and the elite visited theatres with programmes woven from pure fabric.

But ask any local, and they’ll tell you the heyday is happening now. Five years of a green city council have sent their home pedalling into the future, with the introduction of electric pay-per-use bikes and creation of riverside parks in the past year alone. Lyon now has ferries, more bike lanes than ever before and a pedestrianised centre. The dining scene keeps getting better, too. For all Lyon’s big names, it’s the young chefs you want to watch. They let Lyon’s best ingredients shine in a whole new way.

What to see & do

Street art: Lyon has dozens of building-sized trompe l’œil frescoes, optical illusions that are indistinguishable from the street around them. A famous one is La Fresque des Lyonnais on 2 Rue de la Martinière, which shows renowned locals — like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, and the Lumière brothers, pioneers of filmmaking — on hyper-realistic balconies. Plus, the city’s potholes have been filled with mosaics by artist Ememem to look like iridescent puddles.

Fourvière Basilica: Lyon’s Fourvière Basilica recalls Paris’s more famous Sacré-Cœur: it’s an oaty cream colour, perched above the old town and comparatively recent, built in the late 19th century. Yet, it’s hard to imagine the skyline without it; its hilltop location makes it visible from practically the whole city. Book online to climb the 345 steps to the roof for views that stretch to the Alps.

Théâtre Gallo Romain: When the Parisians were still living in mud huts, the Lyonnais — then the people of the Roman provincial capital of Lugdunum — enjoyed drama and gladiator fights in this theatre, on the same hill as Fourvière Basilica. It has a Roman history museum, but the best way to experience it is for its original purpose: entertainment. Come in June and July for Les Nuits de Fourvière, a moonlit festival that hosts music and dance among the 2,000-year-old pillars.

Wine Dine Caroline: American sommelier and blind-wine-tasting champion Caroline Conner Fazeli takes all the snobbery out of her dégustations, held in a restored former silk weaver’s workshop in Croix-Rousse. Wines from central and southeast France — the Rhône Valley and Beaujolais, as well as Burgundy, Savoie and the Auvergne — flow in abundance, and sharing boards of cheese and charcuterie are served.

Institut Lumière: In 1895, the Lumière brothers released what’s often considered the first-ever motion picture, a recording of workers leaving their factory on what’s now Lyon’s Rue du Premier Film (Street of the First Movie). Today, the building featured in the short hosts a nostalgic museum on the birth of film, as well as regular screenings of movies from around the world. Each October, the Festival Lumière has talks from the likes of Sean Penn and Natalie Portman.

Musée des Confluences: For once, you should judge a book by its cover: Confluences is Lyon’s best museum both inside and out. The silver geometric building — one of the wackiest in the city — is located where the rivers Rhône and Saône meet. The permanent collection covers anthropology and human history, but it’s the temporary exhibitions that make the place tick, exploring everything from zombies to why we dream.

Lyon Canoë: Book an independent half-day canoe tour, starting on the Saône at the fifth-century Île Barbe island monastery, and ending on the east bank of the Rhône seven miles later after rounding La Confluence. Upstream, the riverbanks are jungle-like, with motionless herons perched on semi-sunken boats; if you’re lucky, you may even spot beavers. The further downstream you get, the more urban the scene becomes, with views of Fourvière and the Palais de Justice.

Where to shop

Herboristerie de Saint-Jean: Stepping inside this herbalist shop, with its wooden 19th-century apothecary cabinets, feels like stepping back in time. It’s been selling herbs in the heart of Vieux Lyon for over 175 years, and the staff are on hand to recommend natural teas, oils and balms to treat all manner of ills.

Passage Thiaffait: An ever-changing group of creatives populate this courtyard in Les Pentes, the warren-like lanes running up the hill to Croix-Rousse. The street art is as bright and provocative as the window displays. Independent fashion is the mainstay — you’ll find denim jackets with Louvre-worthy paint jobs on the back — along with vinyl stores and thrift shops.

Sophie Guyot Soies: Silk never looked as edgy as it does in this minimalistic boutique, a three-minute walk north from the Hôtel de Ville (town hall). It sells a luxurious and kaleidoscopic collection of dyed and pleated scarves, all handmade on site from white or unbleached fabric. If your purchase starts showing signs of wear and tear, they’ll repair it for you — an excuse to visit Lyon again.

What do after hours

Hot Club: Locals have been bopping and jiving in this iconic venue since 1948, making this one of Europe’s oldest still operating jazz clubs. Its hallowed, vaulted underground halls below the feet of shoppers in the 1st arrondissement have hosted the likes of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

Drôle d’Oiseau: The beers are made right next to the bar at this microbrewery in a residential part of Lyon 3, just south from Part-Dieu train station. Owner Antoine Himbert’s brewpub is a true homage to his hometown, beer capital Lille, and the chips with maroilles cheese sauce are some of the the best you’re likely to get south of Hauts-de-France.

Les Grandes Locos: This vast, industrial events space is set inside former railway warehouses in the rapidly developing area of La Mulatière, south from La Confluence. The factory buildings now host some of Lyon’s best festivals, including the five-day Nuits Sonores electro extravaganza each May and the Lyon Street Food Festival in June, with live music and DJ sets that last well into the night.

Where to eat

Toké French Empanadas: This hole-in-the-wall cafe by Place Sathonay serves empanadas with fillings like mac ’n’ cheese and lemon meringue. It’s so popular that there are now three addresses, including one inside Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse. The original has the best people-watching terrace.

Astral: This venue couldn’t be more French were it wearing a beret and wielding a baguette. Of course, that would be too tacky for Astral, which is nothing if not refined, and where dishes featuring snails from the Lyonnais mountains are photoshoot-worthy. It’s got a starry location, too, a couple of doors from the famous La Mère Brazier restaurant.

Circle: If you needed any proof that it’s the quality of ingredients that make a dish, come to the city’s hottest restaurant, in Lyon 1. Earthy-green olive oil, tomatoes gorged with sunlight, whipped goat’s cheese so light it evaporates on your tongue — they’re used in dishes that fuse international influences, like okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancakes) with gochujang (a Korean red pepper paste).

(How Lyon's bouchons offer a masterclass in traditional French cuisine)

Like a local

Les Puces du Canal: The antiques here are often eye-wateringly expensive, but that doesn’t stop this flea market in Vaulx-en-Velin being the city’s best people-watching spot. Grab a table on the terrace at La Guinguette du Canal, where charcuterie boards are sourced from local businesses, as shoppers barter around you.

La Commune: This food court in the rapidly growing 7th arrondissement is the place to discover Lyon’s next big thing. New chefs set up shop here for a few months at a time to test their recipes and business models. It’s where some of the best places in the city started out, like vegan bakery Zoï and Les Éclaireurs, now known for its sweet and savoury eclairs.

Traboules: Lyon has hundreds of traboules, covered, ‘secret’ passageways between buildings. They date largely to the Renaissance era, though some are much older. While most of them are in private residences, you’re welcome to explore if the door is open. Just be respectful — you’re effectively in someone’s backyard.

Where to sleep

The People: At this combined hostel and events space on the hill leading to Croix-Rousse, you’re as likely to hang out with locals as with travellers. It hosts artisan markets in the courtyard, concerts in the bar-restaurant and even visiting tattoo artists offering flash sales. The dormitories sleep four to 18, and double and family rooms are also available.

Villa 216: There are just two suites at this 19th-century manor house in a residential area of Lyon’s 3rd arrondissement, both equipped with basic self-catering facilities. Breakfast baskets filled with the butteriest viennoisseries (pastries) are delivered to the rooms each morning, and there’s a hot tub in the grounds that can be booked for private use.

Cour des Loges: This grand dame in the old town reopened in 2025 after a refurb, but its oldest parts date from the 14th century; it even has its own traboule and a Rapunzel-like tower with a winding staircase. The restaurant, Les Loges, has a reputation for its twists on classics, like veal in Beaujolais cider.