FOOD TRABOULE: LYON’S NEWEST FOOD COURT

FOOD TRABOULE: LYON’S NEWEST FOOD COURT

NEW AND TRENDY, WHAT EXACTLY IS FOOD TRABOULE?

Food Traboule is the completely crazy project led by Tabata and Ludovic Mey (the chefs at the helm of the restaurant Les Apothicaires) to transform the Tour Rose, an old hotel-restaurant in Old Lyon, into a food court dedicated to gastronomy from Lyon and elsewhere.

We pass the door of Food Traboule and we find ourselves immediately in another world. The place has nothing to do with traditional food courts. Here no large open and refined space, nor Scandinavian furniture or decoration of industrial inspiration. No! The place pays homage to the Renaissance buildings that house it: stone walls, old-fashioned carpets, old armchairs, and an imposing fireplace. We are a thousand miles from the codes of street food ... And that's good!

The place looks like a labyrinth. It is even disconcerting! We can see at the back of the stall room where the cooks are already busy, there a staircase that leads you don’t know where, and here a corridor from which delicious smells come from. With its nooks and crannies, the place seems cramped despite its 600 m2 and some areas do not see daylight.

12 CHEFS IN THE KITCHEN

We go around each stand to discover the full extent of the offer. There are well-known names of establishments in Lyon: Le Bistrot du Potager, La Meunière, Mon Salade Bar, Butcher Brother, Les Apothicaires, Lyon's Gastro Pub, and Le Substrat, as well as some new ones like Misto, La Baraque à Sucre or Ludo's Pizza.

The price range is quite varied at Food Traboule, some stands offer affordable dishes (for example pizzas at € 9), others will make your bank advisor pale with panic (17 euros for a Lobster Roll, yikes). But all in all, the prices are still very reasonable given the quality of the products and the recipes.

VERDICT

What we liked:

• The absolutely fabulous setting of the place

• The variety of the offer both in terms of cuisine and price

• The flavor of the dishes (at least the ones we have tasted)

• The possibility of eating at the counter, opposite the chefs, on most stands

• Self-service carbonated water

• The large central canopy upstairs

What we didn’t really like:

• The configuration of the place feels sometimes a little stuffy

• It's closed on Mondays

In the end, Food Traboule is a unique place. Don't go there thinking about eating in a food court, but rather see it as a pretty crazy dining experience in a fabulous setting. The configuration of the place remains a black point (we can imagine that they did as they could with the constraints related to a listed building), but it is largely offset by the quality of the dishes tasted. We are especially delighted that our good city has such a concept. More than ever Lyon is the capital of gastronomy!