It was raining and raining fiercely. I was not sure if we can take shelter at L'Authentik along the crowded sidewalk in the old town of Medivel Lyon. We asked and the server said we could. We immediately sat down and to our chagrin sat on already wet pillows. Ha! We should have checked before confining our backsides to the creature comforts of the seat cushions. Oh well! We just needed to escape, have a couple of drinks and continue on our way. Our service was attentive even though we only had drinks and we were allowed to use the restrooms. The restrooms aka 'les toilettes' are located upstairs through a very winding staircase. See my attached pictures. Before we started our journey up the stairs were informed that the upper level has an extremely low ceiling and to be careful. They were not joking. The upper level has a maximum clearance of about five feet and five inches. No issues if you're Danny Devito, Daniel Ratcliffe, or Seth Green. The restrooms were clean and stocked which was much appreciated. We returned to our table to see gigantic cocktails being consumed by patrons inside. L"Authentik seems like a cool place to hang out on weekend nights. The scenery with all the antics must be hella worth it. I can't rate the food but our drinks were fresh, the service was great, the bathrooms were stocked, and the overall ambiance looks like a lot of fun. If you're in Vieux Lyon, check out L'Authentik read more

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If you are in Alcoholics Anonymous, L'Authentik will be your absolutely favorite cafe in Lyon. I can drink like a fish if I want to. But L'Authentik is still on my list for one of the top cafes in Lyon. * * * L'Authentik is a completely dry no-alcohol-served French cafe. You just never see such a thing ever in France. That is like having an American vegetarian restaurant with no greens and no salads. Just doesn't happen. Yet, even with no wine, no beer and no aperitifs, The place is one of the most comfortable, and enjoyable cafes around. * * * What is the good stuff? a) They have an amazing line-up of mocktails, Volstead cocktails and Shirley Temples. They have a long long list of no-alcohol cocktails, And the mix-mastering on the mocktails is absolutely first rate. I had a virgin mojito, a fairly standard no-alcohol cocktail that shows up everywhere. My wife had a custom house punch. Both drinks were amazing. Both drinks were also huge, were stuffed to the gills with every kind of fruit and garnish the house could come up with. There were Chinese umbrellas on top just to say nyah nyah nyah. THESE were fun drinks to drink. 2) The decorating is wacko badacko. They have taken every kind of art object they can find, and every strange item you can find in an antique store or an oddities store and crammed the place with it. Doesn't matter what period. Doesn't matter what the piece looks like or what it does. Everywhere you look, there is something else to see. 3) The chairs are super comfy leather chairs, pitched WAY too low for your table. It is like you are five years old again and struggling to eat at the dining room table. But you lean back with your drink and everything is great. We just rolled with it. 4) There are two floors to the bar. The top floor is about 2/3 of regulation height. You have to bend over to get anywhere. You have to duck to get into the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, some things are well attached to what they are supposed to be attached to. Others not so much. Once again, you just roll with it - in this case, literally. 5) The food is highly entertaining. It is not the most gourmet meal you could ever eat in France. But it is fun food and good for what it is. My wife had a delightful crepe, with half of the contents of the local fruit store served on the side. I had a veal chop, balanced on the vegetables and a cheddar cheese wafer to stand at a 40 degree angle off the plate. French veal is better than American veal. So even though it was only an "average" veal chop, served with a ho-hum sauce ... It was still much better than any veal chop I was going to get in the U.S. It was funny "getting my chop down from 40 degrees" so I could eat it. And just for the record - America used to have cheddar cheese wafers. They were a big deal when I was a kid. Grownups would serve them at cocktail parties. We only got cheddar cheese wafers if there were leftovers the morning after the grownups' parties. Ridgey potato chips and beernuts could usually be found. The party guests typically ate all the cheddar cheese wafers themselves. Getting my very own whole cheddar cheese wafer along with a sauce to dip it in ... That totally brought back the childhood pleasures. Dessert was fromage blanc with fruit. Lots of cafes have fromage blanc. It is absolutely reliable. It is absolutely good. Fromage blanc is a simple guarantee of ten minutes of human pleasure. I was totally happy to have mine. * * * So you get the idea. Great drinks (all non-alcoholic.) Great room and great ambience. Decent food. A nice place to hang out. * * * This is what a cafe is supposed to be. read more