It was our first time in Lyon, France and we had two foodie missions: I wanted to make a beeline for the Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse food hall and hubby wanted to get a big plate of escargots. Chez Georges was the perfect compromise.
Located inside the food hall, we visited this restaurant in the mid-afternoon. Since people in France like to dine very late, we opted to sit at the bar. The man working was curt (as is the French way) but he was kind enough (if not warm nor welcoming) and pretended to understand my butchered attempts at his language. I'm fairly certain he spoke perfect English but he still pretended not to.
We asked him his favorite local wine on the menu and he pointed to one red and one white. We ordered both. He got happy (well, as happy as one from France can ever let on) when we ordered the escargots. He then changed which wine he thought would go best with our garlic snails.
The food arrived quickly and the snails were fresh and tasty. Big, meaty, chewy, and served in the traditional way: inside their shells atop a rounded dish. These were good but not great. Hubby said he'd had better escargots in his life.
We were close to being the only tourists in the market in the afternoon, and we certainly were the only ones dining. The other patrons at the bar stared us down the entire time, like we were a novelty act from America. read more