Terreaux, Presqu'île (1er)

Terreaux is the busy civic heart of the Presqu'île's northern end, where the Hôtel de Ville and the Musée des Beaux-Arts frame a square once defined by Daniel Buren's fountain and a forest of stubby columns. Below the crowds and the café terraces, the eating is reassuringly old-Lyon: Le Garet and Chez Hugon are two of the city's most cherished bouchons, narrow rooms with paper tablecloths where regulars and the curious sit elbow to elbow over tablier de sapeur and pots of Beaujolais. These are not places that have changed to suit the times, and that is exactly the point. Wedged between the squares and the slopes of the Croix-Rousse, Terreaux is where you eat the real thing.