Le Café Des Fédérations — Restaurant in Lyon

“You might want to avoid three courses for lunch,” says my friend Danni on our first day in Lyon. Danni has already been in Lyon for a week and had already experimented with several of the city’s eateries. Cafe de Federations, we are warned, will leave very little spare room in our stomachs and indeed, by the end of the night, we were struggling to make the short walk across the Rhone to our respective hotels and I’m convinced it played no small part in my inability to get up at a sensible time the next day.

I’ve no idea if Cafe de Federations was one of the handful of properly certified bouchons, but it is up there with one of the most enjoyable meals I’ve ever eaten. Sitting down the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Rue du Major Martin, the bouchon is as Lyonnaise as you can imagine: gingham tablecloths and a cosy setting, with carafes of Cotes du Rhone €9 a bottle.

There is no menu at Cafe de Federations, or at least not until your third course. By which stage, you’re already halfway to slipping into a food high that you’ll agree to anything. Had you asked me to sign over the deeds to my house, I’d have signed without a thought, my mouth still salivating at the prospect of stewed pig’s cheeks. Note to those undertaking charity fun runs: this is an excellent time to ask for sponsorship.

To start, we were presented with a small bowl of poached egg in broth. This lasted a little longer than the time taken to poach the egg and any residual from the bowl was mopped up with bread. Next up was a Salad Lyonnaise, accompanied by lentils and wild boar terrine. I may have overdone this course a little, which was probably largely to blame for my stagger back to the hotel. The wild boar terrine especially.

For course three, the main, we were offered a choice. While I was tempted by the calves’ head, I took a recommendation and plumped for the aforementioned pigs’ cheeks.

That brief pause was a little more salivation. Apologies. It was delicious. Many, many hours of stewing went into those cheeks, which were so tender they fell apart in my mouth, while the stew itself packed a meaty kick. The black pudding and apple was equally stunning, with the pudding the consistency of a pate.

Cheeses were a pleasant selection, with the mild goat’s cheese proving a real winner, and the range of textures an excellent journey through Lyonnaise fromage, although the local speciality of cheese rind melted into a pate was an acquired taste that none of us had quite acquired.

To round off, the chestnut cake was light and fluffy and the perfect finish to five courses over the course of around three hours and countless bottles of wine. And the price for these five course? A mere €25. You’d be lucky to just get one cheese for that price in some Islington gastropubs. Content, we waddled...

We went to the Cafe on the recommendation of our tour guide. The Cafe has the Bouchon Rating; so we knew we would be getting some good food. The food was good, but the poor service, meant that we gave up before we had a chance to try all the courses.

We know we were eating early, but our reservation was for 7:30 just as the restaurant was opening. We were seated in what I would call the secondary room of the restaurant, but that was OK, the ambiance of the room was great.

The service started off great, we had been seated less than 15 minutes, and we got our drink orders and food orders placed. The first course came out quickly. The first came out after we had been there about 30 minutes. The second course came out in another 30 minutes. The third course came out after another 30 minutes, but the order was wrong. It was quickly corrected, but by then the room was almost completely full. Almost a full hour went by before the plates were removed. (The food was good, BTW.). What we think was a manager came by and apologized for the service, and gave us some sorbet to clear our pallets for the next course. However, after another 30 minutes we still had not been given the cheese course. So by now we had been there about 3 hours and it felt like we had been forgotten about. So we simply asked for the check, paid and left.

I do think this was a one off. At the start of the evening there was one server taking orders, and another bringing out the food. By the end of the evening, there was only one server in the room, and two managers had stepped in to help running out the food.

I would like to try the restaurant again, I just would go in the middle of the week, and not a...

I heard of this through Samantha Browns' travel show and my family and I are a big fan! It is a bit hard to find but it is so worth it and we are lucky we went there early to beat the crowd who have reservations.

First of all, this is such a cute and cozy restaurant that is not pretentious. It is also very reasonably priced. The set menu is $27 Euro but they also give you a lot of freebies in addition to your 3 courses. To start, they gave you this amazing lard bacon and egg salad, which is enough to feed a table of 4 and we got 3. Then, they gave you this individual serving of egg with pork stew soup. It is rich and delicious! After that, they also give you a meatball-like texture spread to go with your house bread.

Finally, I got to try the famous Lyonnaise speciality dish, Quenelle, which is a lake fish paste made-into souffle-like dish. It is surprisingly good and fattening.... ;) My husband had their beef tripe stuffed with other mysterious insides. It is also delicious although quite scary at sight! After our entree, a huge cheese plate is also served. This is to be shared among tables, which is interesting and new to me. They are very good too. When I was about to raise a white flag and gave up eating, our desserts arrived! I tried the Lyonnaise famous Pralines pie. It is very red and sweet and addictive.

Overall, I love my experience here! Everyone is friendly, accommodating and the food is superb. I would...