La Mère Brazier in Lyon: an excellent experience at this monument to French cuisine

La Mère Brazier, Lyon’s double Michelin-starred restaurant, has taken the concept of the ‘bouchon lyonnais’ to a gourmet level for an experience of the highest order.

For this second dinner in Lyon, unlike my previous stays, I planned well in advance to secure a table at one of Lyon’s Michelin-starred restaurants, in this case Mère Brazier, which I’d been dreaming of trying for ages. As this was my birthday dinner, I didn’t want to do things by halves.

At the bottom of the page you’ll find a summary of the articles about this trip to Lyon.

The concept (and a bit of history)

La Mère Brazier is more than just a restaurant, it’s a part of the history of Lyon and even French gastronomy.

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Born in 1895, Eugénie Brazier, known as Mère Brazier, created this Lyonnais bouchon in 1921.

She lost her mother at the age of 10 and was sent to board on a farm where, as well as looking after the animals, she learned the basics of Bresse cooking.

At the age of 19, she found herself a single mother and her father kicked her out. She put her child in a nursery and went to Lyon to try and earn a living.

She opened her restaurant in 1921, and thanks to word of mouth, it became one of the most popular in the city.

In 1932, the Michelin guide awarded two stars to this restaurant and to a second one she had opened in the Lyon countryside.

In 1933, her two establishments were awarded 3 stars. She was the first woman to win this supreme award, which to date has only been awarded to Marie Bourgeois (also in 1933), Marguerite Bise (1951) and Anne Sophie Pic (2007).

She is also the first chef, male and female alike, to be awarded three stars twice for two different restaurants. Later, only Alain Ducasse, Marc Veyrat, Thomas Keller, Joël Rebuchon and Yannick Aléno would achieve this feat.

In 1945, her second restaurant took on the 20-year-old Paul Bocuse as an apprentice.

Her son succeeded her in 1972 and she died in 1977. Today the establishment is owned by chef Mathieu Vianney and has 2 Michelin stars.

The menu

The restaurant offers an à la carte menu and two tasting menus.

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The setting

The restaurant has several dining rooms with 4 or 5 tables, decorated in a bourgeois style and with very spacious tables.

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The rooms are well lit, unlike many trendy restaurants where you can barely make out what’s on your plate.

The meal

I arrived on time for my reservation and was greeted with a warm welcome. I was taken through a number of dining rooms before finally arriving at the one where my table was located.

They bring me the menu and I order a glass of champagne to start (a Castelneau blanc de blanc 2008).

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It will be served with a pâté croûte of Bresse poultry, foie gras and cherries in vinegar.

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Very hearty for an aperitif! It’s very good, has a lot of presence in the mouth, and is much more accomplished than the main courses in many restaurants.

They come to take my order. The exchange was very pleasant, we joked and I decided on the centenary menu. It’s my birthday after all.

No wine pairing as there are too many glasses and mixtures for my taste and the sommelier suggested a personalised wine pairing at my own pace. I trusted her and accepted.

I’m offered a choice of several types of bread, accompanied by olive oil and an amazing half-salted butter.

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The meal starts with an amuse bouche: trout egg, smoked trout, celery, granny smith apple.

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Very good, fresh and well-balanced.

Spider crab and edible crab with condiments, osciètre caviar, shell emulsion.

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The flesh of the crustaceans is lemony, in fact they are pomelos that balance the taste of iodine.

Perfect balance with the caviar, which blends in without intruding, creating a fresh, balanced taste with personality but without being overpowering.

Carabineros prawns and sea urchins, root and tagetes vegetables and sea urchin bisque.

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To enjoy the dish you must alternate cold and hot bites.

The bisque is very good for an ingredient (sea urchin) that is rather controversial, but it is balanced by the tagetes roots, which make it more acceptable.

Fresh and well-balanced, the sea urchins add to the flavour without intruding. At the end of the dish is a sea urchin pana cota, which will be excellent. It really does take talent to tame something so divisive.

Artichoke and foie gras ‘’Tribute to Mère Brazier‘’.

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The foie gras is very salty.

The hot artichokes are very fine with a very well preserved flavour.

A surprising and successful combination, particularly with the pear compote.

Roasted scallops, porridge, golden turnip and mandarin, ‘Petit Guiraud’ butter.

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The scallops were perfect, both in terms of texture and cooking.

The mandarin makes the Sauternes sauce a little acidic, but it’s very good nonetheless.

As usual, it’s not the ingredients but the balance of their marriage that does it all.

Crispy pike bread with crayfish and Nantua sauce.

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I was expecting something like a quenelle but it’s nothing like that. It’s very light because it’s been sieved without flour.

The sauce is good.

Veal sweetbreads and blue lobster, celery heart and liveche gnocchi, shell juice.

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The wait for this dish was quite long and I ended up getting really bored.

The connection between the meat and the lobster is made through a sauce with a reduction of shells and veal juice.

The sweetbreads are perfectly textured and cooked. The gnocchi is fresh and very tasty. The lobster, a little snacky, is delicious.

A daring but perfect marriage!

I take the opportunity to talk to the waiter about my meal from the night before and he also questions the presence of prawns in a vol au vent. Anyway.

Then there’s a surprise for my birthday!

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Not much, but it’s always a pleasure.

Mocaccino, ice cream and coffee praline, Amaretto mascarpone cream, Caribbean chocolate fondant.

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With a bitter chocolate sauce, the whole dish is light and well-balanced.

I’ll finish with a Yunnan tea and a caramel nougat madeleine.

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The madeleine is delicious but my stomach is on the verge of exploding! And what’s more, I’m being served mignardises.

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I really can’t eat any more. I barely touch it and the waiter orders me a taxi.

For those who think that gourmet restaurants feed us microscopic portions, you have proof to the contrary! I couldn’t swallow another mouthful and it reminded me of that dinner with Olivier at Gordon Ramsay’s Pressoir d’Argent where a digestive stroll of over an hour back to the hotel was barely enough.

All this for a total bill of 301 euros. With the menu at 230 euros and champagne at 25 euros, they didn’t have a heavy hand on the wine!

The service

Really excellent. Very professional and warm, friendly even, without being at all obsequious.

Really friendly staff.

The atmosphere

Cozy but not oppressive.

Bottom line

When we talk about the ‘bouchon Lyonnais’, we’re usually talking about simple, convivial cuisine, but Mère Brazier has taken this cuisine to a truly gastronomic level.

Everything was perfect from A to Z, including the service, and it’s proof that you can achieve impressive results without falling into the trap of hyper-sophistication, which is often disappointing when it turns into hyper-complication.

In any case, it’s a real job of sublimating local, simple ingredients and traditional recipes.


All the articles about this trip to Lyon

#TypePost
1DiaryPreparing a gastronomic stay in Lyon
2TrainParis-Lyon, Trenitalia, Executive Class
3HotelMarriott Lyon Cité Internationale
4RestaurantLe Bouchon Sully, Lyon
5Restaurant La mère Brazier, Lyon
6TrainLyon-Paris, Trenitalia, Executive Class
7DiaryDebriefing of the stay in Lyon

La Mère Brazier à Lyon

Cadre et ambiance
Intérêt de la carte
Présentation des plats
Qualité des plats
Quantité
Service
Rapport Expérience / Prix

Excellent

Le bouchon lyonnais à la puissance gastronomique.

Bertrand Duperrin
Bertrand Duperrinhttp://www.duperrin.com
Compulsive traveler, present in the French #avgeek community since the late 2000s and passionate about (long) travel since his youth, Bertrand Duperrin co-founded Travel Guys with Olivier Delestre in March 2015.
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