What it is
The covered market on the east bank carries the name of Paul Bocuse (1926–2018), who held three Michelin stars for more than fifty years and did more than anyone to make Lyonnais cooking famous. The stalls are cheesemongers, butchers, charcutiers, fishmongers, pastry makers — and small counters where you can eat.
What to look for
This is where to see the building blocks of Lyonnais cooking in one place: the sausages, the Bresse poultry, the quenelles, the Saint-Marcellin cheese, the pink pralines.
Getting it right
Go at the end of the morning, when the counters are serving and the market is at its busiest. Many stalls close early in the afternoon and some are shut on certain days — check before you cross the river for it.
From the Cordeliers to the Part-Dieu
Lyon's first great covered market stood on Place des Cordeliers, on the Presqu'île. Built under the prefect Claude-Marius Vaïsse with an iron structure designed by Tony Desjardins, it opened on March 1, 1859. It became a true hall when the traders were allowed to leave their stalls and scales in place permanently. Over the years it grew too small and too old: storage no longer met hygiene standards, and there was nowhere to park.
At the end of the 1960s Mayor Louis Pradel had a modern market built in the new Part-Dieu district, at 102 Cours Lafayette, near the Part-Dieu shopping center and railway station. It opened in February 1971, the same winter the Cordeliers hall was demolished. It was renovated in 2005–2006 with a large glass front on Cours Lafayette, and in 2007 it was renamed in honor of Paul Bocuse.
The belly of Lyon
Locals call it the belly of Lyon. The market covers 13,500 square meters on three levels, with about sixty food shops and restaurants: butchers and charcutiers, poultry dealers, cheese sellers, fishmongers and oyster bars, bakers, pastry makers and chocolatiers, a quenelle maker and wine merchants. It welcomes up to 10,000 visitors a day, and thanks to Bocuse's name it has become as much a stop for visitors as Vieux Lyon or Fourvière. The market is dedicated both to Bocuse and to the mères lyonnaises.
The traders hold concessions from the city. In 2024 those concessions, due to expire at the end of 2025, were put out to competitive tender as the law requires, and the new ones run from early 2026 for ten and a half years.
Paul Bocuse
Paul Bocuse was born on February 11, 1926, in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or just outside Lyon, in the building that still houses his restaurant, and died there on January 20, 2018. He held three Michelin stars for 53 years, from 1965 until his death. At eighteen he volunteered for the Free French army and was badly wounded in 1944; the American soldiers who treated him tattooed a Gallic rooster on his shoulder, and he received the Croix de Guerre. After his apprenticeship he worked in Paris at Lucas Carton, where he became lifelong friends with Pierre and Jean Troisgros. He learned Lyon cooking from Eugénie Brazier, the most famous of the mères, and considered Fernand Point his mentor. He brought chefs out of the kitchen and into public life, and greeted every guest at Collonges in a white jacket with the tricolor collar of a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, a title he won in 1961. His black truffle soup, created for President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1975, is among his best-known dishes. He shopped here for his restaurants, at the cheese, fish and charcuterie counters.
The mothers of Lyon cooking
The mères lyonnaises were women who ran restaurants, many of them former cooks to wealthy families who set up on their own, some as early as the eighteenth century, others after their employers were ruined in the crash of 1929. They served a short menu of four or five typical dishes, simple but refined. The first recorded is the Mère Guy, in 1759, known for her eel stew. In 1933 the Mère Brazier and the Mère Bourgeois became the first women to hold three Michelin stars, and the Mère Brazier's restaurant on Rue Royale had been open since 1921; with her two restaurants she eventually held six stars. General de Gaulle and Édouard Herriot ate at their tables, and Bocuse was one of Eugénie Brazier's apprentices.
Others are remembered for a single dish. Between 1830 and 1850 the Mère Brigousse, in the Charpennes district, made her name with oversized breast-shaped quenelles called Venus's nipples, a favorite at bachelor parties. The Mère Léa, at La Voûte on Place Antonin-Gourju, was known for her tablier de sapeur, her macaroni gratin and her blunt tongue. The Mère Vittet's restaurant stood beside the Brasserie Georges near Perrache station.
Sources
- Halles de Lyon-Paul Bocuse — Wikipédia (French)
- Paul Bocuse — Wikipédia (French)
- Mère (restauration) — Wikipédia (French)
