What Nola food can learn from France’s capital gain | Where Nola eats
11 mins read

What Nola food can learn from France’s capital gain | Where Nola eats

Andouillettes would be a good name for a Mardi Gras dance group.

I felt lonely and far from home, but at the same time linked to some visceral that I recognized around this foreign city. Still, andouillette should definitely not get confused With Louisiana Andouille.







Andouilette

Andouilette, the French sausage made with intestines filled in the enclosure, is a traditional dish at Bouchons in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


“Most Americans, they wouldn’t eat it,” said the man sitting at my elbow at the counter and washed his paw steak with a glass of gamay and gave this stranger in a strange country a welcome validation.

Andouillette is all inner. It is the length of a gut filled with more of the same thing. I have read about old Cajuns who called something similar “gut”, although I have never found it in Louisiana.

You can find it all over Lyon, on traditional restaurant menus and packed at home. Cooked in a strong, buttery mustard sauce it was surprising, well, tolerably tasty, if it is also very bouncing.

But I did not dig in pure for pleasure. I ventured from a famous food city to learn from another much older, much bigger star that burned in the constellation kitchen.

Lyon is known for their food traditions. It is also a magnet for culinary talents from all over the world and a city where global leaders in its field are convened. It is because of its foundation and how the people who value who have used their potential.







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Stås and pavilions have food from all over Europe and all over the world at the Sirha Lyon Food Show in Lyon, France, which draws 4,700 suppliers and presence of 210,000 people over five days. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)








Team USA v

Team USA, including the main chef Stefani de Palma, Commis Bradley Waddle and coach Sebastian Gibrand, competes during the Bocuse d’Or, known as the World Cup kitchen, held at the Sirha Lyon Food Show in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)








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Eating oysters and seafood directly from the counter on a stand at the Chez Leon stand at Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse Food Hall in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


Even in famous Foodie France, Lyon is the next level. It is considered the country’s gastronomy, which reasoned from New Orleans, who should have the same status for the United States.

These are both cities where food culture is part of a civic identity and cities that deal with a reputation for hospitality. How does this register in French and in the big city of Lyon?

Doors open for nola

Others have acknowledged the connection, in addition to Andouillette research.

New Orleans & Co., the city’s tourism sales and marketing agency, organized a delegation of staff and local chefs to represent the city at Lyon’s Giant International Food Trade Show, Called Sirha Lyon (Five days, 210,000 participants, 4,700 exhibitors, at least 100 stand alone who are engaged in cured ham …). I followed the delegation on their mission.







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Chef Wilfredo breeders (left) talk to a visitor to New Orleans & Co. -Omes at the Sirha Lyon Food Show in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)








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Alice Glenn, CEO of the tourist agency New Orleans & Co., talks with business opportunities visiting New Orleans Booth at the Sirha Lyon Food Show in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


This event is also home for Bocuse d’Or and Coupe du Monde de la PatisserieTwin events called World Cup food. Followed closely by people who attach national pride to culinary art, the events are covered robust in the media and draw an arena size Hall of Passionate Fans.







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Chefs compete in the catering competition at the Sirha Lyon Food Show, which contains Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)








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Supporters by Team Japan Cheer on the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie, pastry shops, held at the Sirha Lyon Food Show in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)








Lyon paper

France is a newspaper in Lyon and covers the two -year return of the Sirha Lyon Food Show and Bocuse d’Or chef competitions in the French city. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)








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Media and fans record the action at the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie, the pastry warm, held at the Sirha Lyon Food Show in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


New Orleans hosted a semi -final round For these competitions last year, and now they will return in 2026 for another in their two -year series. It will mean chefs from all over the world and the industry icons will again gather in New Orleans in the pursuit of the highest awards in global cuisine.

This global food event chose New Orleans as its gateway when trying to build its profile in the United States, and it can open new doors to the host city.







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Chefs in New Orleans for Bocuse d’Or and pastry World Cup selection gather in a reception at Arnaud’s restaurant to try the local Creole cuisine before the international competition. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


“New Orleans for me is very impressive, the mix of cultures, it makes something important for gastronomy, and for me is gastronomy culture,” Florent Suplisson, head of Bocuse d’Or, told me when I visited the city last year. “It’s specific to the United States, and it’s different here in New Orleans. I love it. “

Roots and range

Lyon has his own food traditions. But the idea of ​​food culture here goes beyond Textbook dishes and bouchon -restaurants where they are alternately preserved and flogated for tourists.

The city has positioned itself as a place where worldwide culinary talent competes, where old traditions can tolerate next to young chefs who develop the next generation of restaurants.







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The Bouchon restaurant is a fixture by Lyon, France, where a traditional kitchen endures. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)








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Salad Lyonnaise, thick with ledons of bacon, is part of the Bouchon Menu tradition at Le Bistrot d’Abel in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


For every meal here that started with Salad Lyonnaise (another bouchon -booklet; mainly greens that provided a metaphorical fig leaf to a bowl of fat Lardons), there was a modern restaurant with new energy pulsed through local relevant flavors (a subtle Japanese touch at a restaurant, Stylea clear Basque influence on another, Funko).







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Funko in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)









scallops

Scallops with cured ham at the Runa restaurant in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)









dessert

An elegant dessert ends a taste mutan dinner at Restaurant Flair in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


Together, it showed the same dance between the textbook and new chapters that animate New Orleans food scene, one that should be better known.

One thing that Lyon does is good is to bring his food identity in addition to the framework of the restaurant room. It is part of a culture that is registered everywhere.







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Chef Eugénie Brazier is one of the mediated only Lyonnaise, celebrated in Lyon, France in public screens like this. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)









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A chocolate statue by chef Paul Bocuse was made by Valrhona for the Sirha Lyon Food Show, which contains Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


Chefs are celebrated as sports heroes on murals and banners around the city. Les Mère Lyonnaise, The women whose successive generations led the region’s traditional, cordial homemade to the highest levels are particularly lionized.

Pictures and tributes to the late Paul Bocuse, known as the godfather for modern French cooking, shows up in independent restaurants and in the lobbies in hotels. The food hall where I tried Andouillette is also named after him, a marketplace that draws tourists for sure, but also sees the locals making their daily groceries from their special providers.







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Butcher cut meat at the supplier’s booth at Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse Food Hall in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)








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A dog and its owners inspect a cheese salesman’s selection at Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse Food Hall in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


The idea is that the kitchen is not only something prepared and consumed, but a cold that is conducted, an industry that is valued and a culture that is shared and practiced with power and Gusto.

It is about more than having many restaurants, or restaurants that draw praise and awards. To experience a city like this, through its spectrum of restaurants, in its markets and at events built around food, feels like participating in a story. We have it, we can do better at utilizing it.







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Chefs compete in the catering competition at the Sirha Lyon Food Show, which contains Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, France. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)


Taking lessons from another city is not about copying them play-by-play. What seems to work naturally in Europe does not always translate at home. But we can take inspiration from a place where much of what attracts us about the kitchen and what we value in our food culture is recognized and engaged as their phone card to the world.

There are many places in the world to travel for food, and recently in the United States, more cities are promoting themselves in mattureism in the competition for travel.

Still, the New Orleans experience remains unique. We can do more to raise it and celebrate it and add value.