Daniel et Denise Créqui - Bouchon Lyonnais — Restaurant in Lyon

Friendly service, charming place (though emptying a bit at the time of our 9:30pm reservation), but the food is mostly nothing special. Wouldn't go here again, I'm afraid.

We had two starters, two mains, and a bit of wine, which filled us up nicely (at 80 euros for two). We initially thought to get the set menu (35 euro each), but some of the more interesting dishes were not among the options.

We both felt that the pate, which gets very good reviews, was just fine. We've been in France three weeks and have had better several times from high-end butchers.

The sweetbread starter was the best dish of the bunch, the only one where the quality of the cooking really made it more than the sum of its parts, with the sauce pairing very well with the sweetbread.

The pike quinelle was a bit boring. First you taste very little, then a bit of pike at the end. Sauce didn't add anything. A grilled piece of pike sounds like a much better option to me.

The spare rib wasn't an inspired choice, really. Again the sauce didn't really do anything for the dish, tasty but eminently forgettable. (Wishing I'd gotten the liver instead, but I can only cope with a full plate of liver if it's very well prepared, so I chickened out.)

The house white was not very pleasant, but cheap, so fair enough.

Overall, the sweetbread dish is the only one I happily paid for -- the others I'd rather take the money, but the relevant ingredient, and bung it up myself, would enjoy it at...

I feel like this is one of those places that used to be very good and as a result got a lot of high ratings on TripAdvisor (and other sites), but then people started showing up in mass quantities because of the reviews and so the restaurant has had to produce mass quantities of food and as a result the quality is suffering.

The poached egg was excellent, but the fish was quite rubbery and the accompanying side dishes (fried potatoes, macaroni and cheese, bread, etc.) were all very mediocre. In France, I expect these things to be above average (at least above the American average) simply because I'm in France. At a place that has a rating of 4 with 700 reviews, I expect them to be outstanding.

In addition the merely average food, the service was strange. There were only 3 people serving the restaurant, which should have been enough but they all seemed to be a little confused as to who they should be serving and when. It was disjointed and ended up taking longer than it should have (and I know that in France they like to let you take your time - this was not that).

Finally, the prices were way too high for the quality of the food, and the wine got for 20 euros for a half bottle was, again, mediocre.

In a foodie haven like Lyon, I have found many...

Big expectations, great name, ended up with food poisoning.

Went for dinner, very tensed atmosphere from the beginning without many guests around, the sommelier was probably having a bad day but her presence was quite stressful and she kept spilling our wine on the table. We could speak both French and English, chose the wine ourselves and didn’t really bother her or the staff to get this attitude. The rest of the staff was great, although I felt bad for them as they seemed stressed.

Food was unfortunately underwhelming, but the worst is that and my dining partner got food poisoning from one of the dishes. Someone next to me said ‘I’m glad I’m hungry’, which sums up the whole experience perfectly. The wine list was great, which is the only good thing about the whole experience. We also chose this place especially because the main chef with the many awards usually cooks at this location.

It’s the type of place that will always get customers because of its name, but if you’re reading this, maybe invest your money into smaller businesses and restaurants that will really show you why Lyon is the food...