Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

Lyon is France's gastronomic capital — far calmer and more enjoyable than Paris, and a wonderful city for seeing different sides of French cooking. We'll be sharing more from here, but we wanted to start with Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, a favourite of Lyon locals that pleased us enormously.

It's small, hard to find and has a narrow menu. Without a local's recommendation we'd probably never have found it. There are five options each for starters and mains. With its burgundy walls and ceiling, the room is like a museum.

The food is very good indeed. The foie gras with truffled artichoke and the crab salad in puff pastry we had to start were excellent. The duck main was good; the lamb shank was magnificent. The way the shank was presented, with smoked sage, was striking too.

We ate very well in Lyon, but this is the one we'd put in first place.