We are REALLY looking forward to dining in Lyon's bouchons. What has been your expereince with them and can you recommend any?

topping... hoping for some responses!

If you don't get any suggestions here, go to the Lyon Tourist Office when you arrive. They will certainly help you. Or invest in a really good guide book for that part of France.

The usual advice suggesting that one should find a place filled with locals seems not to apply in Lyon. All the bouchons appear to be filled with locals.

Our experience was that we always found someone who spoke English, after we tried out our meager French. And, they were always willing to make suggestions and, when the suggestions of meals were too adventurous for us, no one seemed insulted.

Our favorite evening in a Bouchon was in Le Amphityron, in the old city on a street with several. It has a red canopy, and is on the North side of the street.

When it began to rain, staff and customers pushed the tables close together. Because the wait staff could not make it between tables, cartes and meals were simply passed from hand to hand to the correct tables. (We were waiting to see if a waiter would try that means of transportation, thus turning the restaurant into a "nosh" pit. In that we were disappointed.)In these circumstances it was impossible to avoid sharing conversations and wine with the people in tables touching ours.

Even after the rain stopped, the party continued on until early the next morning.

I tried a lot of bouchons in Lyon on my last trip there. They were all outstanding, but the one I remember best (because I tried pig's ears and loved them!) was Les Trois Cochons.

Lyon is a foodie heaven. Enjoy!

I was in Lyon several years ago, just passing through, and stopped in a one-star restaurant near the Cathedral - I can't remember its name, but I'll check Michelin to nudge my memory. I will share it because it was FANTASTIQUE. Not a bouchon, I know.

ttt

Oops thought a bouchon was a traffic bottleneck

it is, figuratively -- it can mean a hold-up or blockage. It's the word for a cork, that's probably why (and why you see restaurants named Tire-Bouchon which is the word for a corkscrew).

I don't know why they call those restaurants in Lyon bouchon, maybe from the word for butcher, boucher. There is also a verb, bouchonner, to rub down (eg, a horse) but I don't know how that could happen.

Actually, I think I read some story about how that name started in Lyon, from a place for riders to stop for a rest, so maybe it did come from bouchonner.

Bouchon originally meant a bundle of twisted straw (which may have been what was originally used to stuff bottle necks before corks).Representations of those bundles of straw started appearing outside road houses/taverns in the 16th century, and eventually the restaurants themselves came to be know by the same term.

StCirq, that's interesting, I was wondering about the origins of the word.