Dinner at Tetedoie - Lyon, France

May 1

May 1 Dinner at Tetedoie - Lyon, France

There are a LOT of Michelin star restaurants in Lyon. I did a good amount of research in trying to choose one or even if we should waste a whole paycheck on a fancy dinner. My Instagram poll of “stay on budget” versus “you only live once” favored the yolo by 88%. I read that there are basically great restaurants every where in Lyon because it is the food capital of France.

Tetedoie had the most reasonable prices and was open on a Sunday. What is reasonable you may ask? I mean reasonable for a place with a Michelin star. The 7 course tasting menu that we selected was 115€ per person. We went into the evening starting out with a high price bill before we added any wine to our dinner.

We we’re excited for our fancy dinner. Adam brought a suit and I brought a nice dress. It was a bit colder in Lyon then I had hoped but no worries—I was prepared this trip with 3 sweaters and 3 jackets. Still, I managed to have a mini meltdown before leaving because I didn’t have stockings and I thought my legs would be cold. Why would my legs be cold? Because we were 100% taking a scooter to the restaurant. Yes, we dressed like superstars and scooted through Lyon to a Michelin restaurant.

This restaurant is known for a panoramic view of the city which meant it is at the top of the hill. We had to leave the scooter at the bottom and we hiked up to the top. It was actually a nice view and though we weren’t seated directly at the window, we were able to see just fine.

The beginning of the meal was quick with synchronized service. There were two waiters who cleared our plates at the same time and brought us the first palette cleansing course of coriander sorbet.

We perused the extensive wine list and decided to start with a glass of Condrieu which is 100% Viognier from the northern Rhone. This is somewhat of a rare find in the US but more so it is very expensive in our area because it is a small production. After the glasses of Viognier, we select a bottle from Cornas for our meal. This is also Northern Rhône and 100% Syrah. Both wines were excellent! Possibly the highlight of our meal.

The amuse Bouche course was a local goat cheese wrapped in a thinly sliced beet with beet purée, crumbled hazelnuts, and drizzled with honey. This was so simple and light and fresh and definitely something to make at home and seem much fancier than it really is.

The first of our seven courses is: Arctic char with some sort of fennel and horseradish cream sauce . There was a crispy, thin, rice chip like item on the top with gave a nice crunch to an otherwise crunchless dish. The Arctic char was similar to salmon in taste and texture and I thought the tastes accompanying the fish were quite good.

This next photo illustrates the differences between Adam and I being finished with a dish. When Adam is done, there is always food left! My momma taught me to clear my plate and not waste food. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even let Adams plate go back with food on it!

The next course that follows is Veal Tartare with mustard and artichokes. The artichoke is the crispy leaves on top and also a puree on the side. That was the highlight of this dish. The veal was definitely too salty and somehow the idea of veal tartare made my stomach turn a bit. I don’t think either of us cleared our plate for this course.

This next course I think was the highlight: Lobster with something green, something we think was beef, and a carrot lobster sauce. Why is my description so bad? well, the waiter’s English was not the best and he spoke fast so I neither of us could catch everything that he said. This dish was rich and light at the same time, it was perfectly savory and probably a favorite for both of us.

Moving on to course 4: Quail with red wine sauce and beans. Of course there is also some sort of foam on there and what is under that foam? We can’t be sure but it seemed to be a type of grain or rice. Prior to this course arriving, they brought us two knives meant to right handed people (which we are). However, it turns out that I don’t cut my food correctly. I cut with my left hand for some reason and Adam was mortified to be seen with such an animal at this nice establishment so he got up and left!

Just kidding.

But he did tease me about it and I tried the other way but it did not work for me. I think maybe it was our laughing that made the service change a bit here.

After course 4, the cheese trolley comes around. I am curious if this counts as a course or does that mean there are 3 dessert courses?

The cheese of this region is stinky. I’m talking so much barnyard that it smells like a dirty lamb is laying on your plate. This is not my style. This is Adam’s style. So though I love cheese, I could not stomach these soft smelly options. Adam had to eat all of the cheese while I moved mine onto his plate. I ate more bread instead.

We made another discovery this evening. I make lots of crumbs and Adam makes barely any. The waiter crumbed my side of the table between every course. Yes, I was eating over the plate! Maybe my bread was just crumbier.

Now is where the service changed for us. We watched other tables get ahead of us by two courses while we waited and waited for our dessert. I had wondered if they were waiting for us to finish our wine. Maybe they wanted to make a sale on a dessert wine or coffee. But nope, after maybe 20 mins, we finally get our first dessert course.

Course five: Rhubarb, vanilla cream, ice cream. Im all for the deconstructed menu but sometimes, these things just need to be mixed together. Instead of spending so much time trying to get a little bit of each on my spoon, we both mixed everything up and it was a delicious bowl of rhubarb vanilla ice cream!

Course 6: Pears, white chocolate, vanilla, pecan nuts. This was very yummy. Pear sorbet up top, whipped cream on top of a crunchy biscotti like “cake” as the main part. It was good but I think we were already a bit disappointed by the slow service as people who arrived after us started to leave and we were still not done. Our reservation was for 7:30 and at this point it’s about 10:00pm.

Last course was some chocolate cake pop that had maybe rhubarb inside? It was a sour taste that I didn’t like. The next was basically a thick chocolate chip cookie, then a coconut marshmallow type thing, then a macaron. The macaron was awesome but everything else? Eh.

After this, we waited probably 30 minutes for the check. I had to flag someone down and say “uhhh we’ve been done for quite a while here!”. For $400-that’s not okay. The food was very good, but with a Michelin star, shouldn’t everything be amazing? My biggest complaint would be for that price, I don’t expect 3 dessert courses. And I love dessert! But that seems like a cheap way to fill a 7 course menu.

So overall, I wish we had stayed on budget but we did have a really good time laughing throughout the dinner. We had a nice scoot back to the hotel and maybe we will eat some cheap food for the next few days.