The Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie is part of a €230m redevelopment of the Grand Hôtel-Dieu, a monumental, pale-stone building that was the city’s main hospital until 2007. And it’s well positioned, being right on the Rhône River, in the heart of Lyon.
“It’s not just about Lyon and French cuisine,” says Régis Marcon, Michelin-starred chef and chairperson of the Cité’s strategic orientation committee. “It’s very much an international centre: we will work with other cities celebrated for their food.”
The first guest country – focused on during the autumn – is Japan while, subsequently, each month a different food will be featured: bread throughout November, followed by chocolate in December.
In line with the building’s former use, the central theme of the Cité is food and health. On the same site in the 12th century, monks were caring for the sick and, when the current building was constructed in the 17th century, patients were looked after by nuns who ensured they ate well and recovered using plants from the medicinal garden. The sisters kept contagious patients apart from the wounded in four huge wards (improving survival rates) beneath a 32-metre-high central dome that forms the principal part of the Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie.
Looking up towards the main dome is a floating circle of 13 giant spoons – perhaps more for food tasting than receiving medicine – but both health and eating (combined with the sacred importance of food) are the foundations of the Cité’s exhibits and philosophy. The focus is on wellbeing and eating fresh, local ingredients rather than on the pastry, butter, cream and hefty meat sauces associated with Lyon’s traditional bouchon cuisine.
The French gastronomic meal was added to Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010 and there’s an underlying emphasis in the Cité on the superiority of French cuisine. Lyon’s most famous chef, Paul Bocuse, who died in 2018, appears as a warm-hearted, life-size cutout, as do the Mères Lyonnaises, the famous Mothers of Lyon who, having been let go from household service, opened restaurants serving simple, hearty dishes and enhanced Lyon’s reputation for excellent food.
The visit starts in the Grand Hôtel-Dieu’s wood-panelled 17th-century apothecary with blue-and-white ceramic urns in their original cabinets, where visitors learn about the secrets of medicinal plants. The À Table section looks at the origin of recipes, a virtual food hall with interactive screens linking what’s on your plate with what was once in the field.
L’Atlas Mondial de la Gastronomie examines the rituals related to mealtimes and the different techniques and utensils used around the world. Et demain? looks at the future of food, nutrition, sustainability and ecological transitions. Miam Miam is a floor for children who can play hide-and-seek in a room-size food basket, listen to talking animals, fly on a virtual bumblebee’s back across the globe and play with an interactive tea set.
There are all-day food workshops, talks on understanding food labels, using seasonal produce, cooking demonstrations, visits by chefs and the opportunity to do tastings and masterclasses in the Gastro’Lab. Set over four floors, it’s an imaginative, playful, educational experience with high-tech exhibits set in various rustic, curative or culinary settings within the beautifully renovated building.
A highlight is the top-floor kitchen where visitors can assist chefs to prepare dishes. The exhibition Revisiting Arcimboldo looks at works by the Renaissance master of the fruit-and-veg portrait and runs from December until May 2020. Organisers hope for around 300,000 visitors per year.
Lyon already hosts Sirha, the world’s largest food and catering trade fair, as well as the Biennale Internationale du Goût (Big) and the Bocuse d’Or, the chefs’ Olympics, every two years.
As for the origin of Lyon’s reputation as the capital of world gastronomy, it came from the pen of turn-of-the 20th-century French journalist and food critic Curnonsky, who was himself voted the Prince of Gastronomes by chefs and restaurateurs in 1927. It certainly came well after Renaissance writer François Rabelais – who revelled in Lyon’s culinary traditions, depicting the tawdry delights of offal and cheap cuts in Gargantua and Pantagruel. Rabelais, coincidentally, worked as a physician at the original Grand Hôtel-Dieu in the 1530s.
Besides the gastronomy centre, the site incorporates the five-star Hotel InterContinental, which opened in June 2019, private apartments, a conference centre, food hall, 40 courtyard shops and nine restaurants. It has taken more than four years to complete (only the chapel remains to be fully restored) with much of the renovation using the original construction techniques of the 17th and 18th centuries.
At almost the same latitude on the other side of France, Bordeaux’s Cité du Vin has attracted more than 1.3 million visitors since it opened in June 2016. Three other Cités dedicated to food and drink are due to open in Paris-Rungis, Tours and Dijon in the next decade.
• Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie, Grand Hôtel-Dieu, Place de l’Hôpital, Lyon. Open daily 10am-7pm (until 10pm on Saturdays). Le Cellier, the centre’s cafe and gift shop, is open daily from 9am to 8pm. Combined entry plus tasting €24. Entrance only, adults €12, 5-16s €8, under 5s free. Eurostar trains run from London St Pancras to Lyon in 4 hours and 41 minutes
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