What to eat in Lyon

In Lyon you eat in a bouchon: a three-course menu is €25–35, and almost every item on the board has a name that does not sound like food. Lyon's second meal is the mâchon at nine in the morning, and the third is eaten at a counter in the Paul Bocuse market hall.

A menu that does not translate

The salade lyonnaise with a poached egg and bacon is the least alarming item. Quenelles de brochet are a paste of pike, egg and butter baked in sauce, which rises like a soufflé. Andouillette is a sausage of pig's intestine and smells exactly as you would expect. Tablier de sapeur is breaded tripe, and cervelle de canut a spread of fresh cheese with herbs — the name means silk-worker's brain and has nothing to do with brain.

The mâchon, a breakfast left over from the silk workers

The mâchon was born on the Croix-Rousse: after the night shift the silk workers called in at a bouchon for a proper meal, not a coffee. A few houses still serve it, usually from nine in the morning — pork scratchings, andouillette, tablier de sapeur and cervelle de canut, with Beaujolais or Mâcon. Most will only make it if you book the day before, and some only for a group of eight, so a mâchon is not something you stumble on; you book it like dinner.

2 daysWhere these meals fit into the two-day plan:Lyon in 2 days →

What to look for on the board

• Quenelles — with sauce Nantua, made from crayfish. If you try them only once, make it this way.
• Saint-Marcellin — a small soft cheese from nearby, served warm and running. On a three-course menu it comes at the end, in place of dessert.
• Tarte aux pralines — pink pralines melted into cream in a pastry case. The colour is not the almond's: colouring goes into the caramel, once carmine from cochineal, now also beetroot extract.
• Beaujolais — gamay from the north; on the board you ask for it by the name of the cru, such as Fleurie, Morgon and Moulin-à-Vent.

Where

• Vieux Lyon — the most bouchons per square metre, and also the most places that are not one. The Gnafron sticker on the glass is the only check.
• Les Halles Paul Bocuse — a market where you lunch at the counter, Sundays included, when most bouchons are shut.
• The Croix-Rousse — the silk workers' hill, where the mâchon was born.

What not to order

• Supermarket quenelles as a souvenir. That is a half-product; quenelles are eaten baked and immediately, not carried home.
• Beaujolais nouveau at any time but November. That is one wine a year, and the Beaujolais has ten serious crus with nothing to do with it.

Hidden gemsWhat else is on the Croix-Rousse besides the bouchons?Lyon beyond Vieux Lyon: seven addresses, from the Mur des Canuts to a pebble garden →