The silk workers' brains are delicious. Creamy and light, flavoured with shallots and herbs, they are a mouth-watering tribute to Lyon's industrious past and its status as France's culinary capital.
Despite the name of the dish, cannibalism is not the specialty of the house at Daniel et Denise, a cheerfully unpretentious restaurant in the city's delightful Renaissance-era Vieux-Lyon, a UNESCO world heritage site.
Made from fromage blanc and seasoned with salt, pepper and vinegar, the silk workers' brains are served as an appetiser alongside a gratin of tripe and chitterling sausage, which might struggle to win the Heart Foundation's tick of approval.
The home of the legendary chef Paul Bocuse and more than a dozen Michelin-star restaurants, Lyon is no slouch in dishing up haute cuisine.
France's second-largest city is home to several leading culinary schools, the Sirha catering fair and the soon-to-be-opened Cité de la Gastronomie, a museum devoted to food in the renovated Hôtel-Dieu.
The city's cuisine has been lavished with praise since the Renaissance by the likes of Rabelais, Erasmus, the poet Joseph Berchoux, Stendhal and 20th-century food critic Curnonsky, who wrote that the Lyonnais cuisine reflected its civic virtues.
"It is this honesty, this taste of the measure, I like to find in an honest and healthy Lyonnais dish," Bocuse says.
Culinary soul
But Lyon's culinary soul is undoubtedly in its bouchons, the restaurants that evolved from small inns created in the 17th and 18th centuries to cater for workers in the silk industry.
Cooking was traditionally the domain of the Mere Lyonnaises, or mothers, who transformed cheap cuts of meat into dishes such as tripe and chitterling (intestines) sausage.
Today there are 20 or so restaurants with the official seal of approval (the Les Bouchons Lyonnais) – plus many uncertified operators set up as tourist traps – among the thousands of eateries in the city.
Their food is simple and hearty, the wine – traditionally served in a classic, thick-bottomed pot lyonnais – flows freely and the atmosphere is convivial.
Fussy eaters will have to mend their ways to fully appreciate Lyonnais cuisine, but adventurous diners are richly rewarded.
The foie gras and veal sweetbread pie is a specialty at Bouchon Daniel et Denise, but so too is the calf's head, sautéed tripe and Silk weaver's stew (a porcine extravaganza of pork cheek, pork rind, bacon and Lyonnais sausage).
And room must also be found for traditional dishes such as the quenelle and vividly coloured praline tart.
Situated on the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers, Lyon is two hours from the Mediterranean, little more than an hour from the mountains and a mere 30 minutes from the Beaujolais wine region. Further afield are the grapes of Savoie, Bugey and Vallée du Rhône.
Paris is a two-hour fast train ride away, while the new Lyondres service offers a direct rail trip to London in five hours. Australian travellers can also fly to the city via Dubai.
The hearty Lyonnais diet undoubtedly fuels the heroics of players for Les Loups (The Wolves), as Lyon's premiere rugby team are known, and their football compatriots who play for Olympique Lyonnais.
But it is an enduring mystery how the French manage to retain their figures despite their gout-inducing diet. A svelte waiter at Daniel et Denise simply says: "I run."
The hill that prays
Even at a leisurely pace, it is possible to stroll through 2000 years of history between meals.
On a crisp autumn morning, Jean Pierre Dufour, a volunteer guide with the Lyon City Greeters, introduces me to the rich past of a city that began life as the Roman settlement of Lugdunum, the capital of the Gauls, in 43BC.
A well-preserved Roman theatre and forum sits on Fourvière, the "hill that prays", in the shadow of the 19th-century basilica that stands sentry over this devout city.
At the foot of the hill in the Vieux-Lyon, we follow the footsteps of the city's silk workers, who carried their weaving through secret passageways known as traboules to avoid inclement weather and on to boats on the Saône River.
These workers also occupied La Croix-Rousse, the "hill that works", in buildings with large windows and high ceilings constructed to house the Jacquard weaving looms that manufactured much of the city's wealth.
That trade made Lyon "the most Italian city in France", Dufour says, influencing its architecture and free spirit.
"We became French in the 14th century but we keep this mind that we're not really attached to the French kingdom," he says.
The hundreds of traboules threading their way through buildings and internal courtyards were later used by the resistance during World War II to evade capture by the Germans.
One of France's most renowned resistance leaders, Jean Moulin, was captured in Lyon. Dufour also points out the court where Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief known as the Butcher of Lyon for his role in the deaths of up to 14,000 people, was tried and convicted in 1987.
The Presqu'ile occupies the sliver of land between two rivers: the Saône – calm and feminine, according to Dufour – and the more turbulent Rhône. It is home to grand buildings such as the 17th-century Hotel de Ville and Palais Saint-Pierre as well as the Place Bellecour, a large square built to massage the ego of the Sun King Louis XIV.
Lyon is also home to striking modern architecture, including the Renzo Piano-designed Cité Internationale, a bright orange complex of buildings along the Rhône that houses a casino, convention centre and the excellent Musée d'art Contemporain.
Food for thought
At the other end of the city, where the Rhône meets the Saône, is the Musée des Confluences, a cloud-like structure of metal and glass that houses the city's science and anthropology museum. Built on a former industrial wasteland, its adventurous architecture is reminiscent of Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum.
In Lyon, however, the stomach rules the mind and the museum's impressive collection of artefacts plays second fiddle to the Brasserie des confluences, a top-notch eatery run by another Michelin star chef, Guy Lassausaie.
Second cities are like middle children, forever competing with their larger, more famous siblings. Lyon seems to have a Melbourne-shaped chip on its shoulder: its Musée des Beaux-Arts is the second-largest after the Louvre. Its opera house, rebuilt by Jean Nouvel, is second to Paris. It even has its own (smaller) version of the Eiffel Tower. Yet Parisians coo with appreciation and envy at the mention of Lyon.
The city's list of luminaries is lengthy too, from the Lumiere brothers, who were among the world's first filmmakers, to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince and the Laurent Mourguet, the creator of the sharp-tongued Guignol puppet.
Each December, the Festival of Lights pays homage to Mary, Jesus's long-suffering mother, with households placing candles along windows in a tradition that dates back to 1643, when Lyon was afflicted by the plague. The city's cultural calendar also includes dance and contemporary art biennials, and film and literary festivals.
Also worth a visit is the Gothic-style Saint-Nizier Church, which was occupied by sex workers during an eight-day strike in 1975. The prostitutes, among 20,000 who downed tools across France to protest police harassment and the scrapping of anti-pimping laws, immortalised the church in a protest song: "You who threatened us with hell, we have come to eat at your table at Saint Nizier."
Food is never far from the thoughts of the inhabitants of Lyon, whether they are striking sex workers or museum visitors.
Nose-to-tail dining is still the mainstay of Lyonnais cuisine as a quick jaunt through the Halles Paul Bocuse food market amply demonstrates.
Long tongues poke out behind the glass counters of charcuteries alongside salads of pig's ears, feet and noses. Hanging from the ceiling are rows of cured sausages with grand names like Jesu de Lyon.
La Maison Sibilia is one of the most famous purveyors of all things meaty; its owner, Colette Sibilia, was invited to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014.
Elsewhere in the food market there are ham bars, delicatessens selling sausages encased in brioche, sweet shops with shelves laden with hand-made chocolates and bakeries selling volcanic-looking praline desserts.
Lyon is rich in culinary history, but its food scene is not hidebound by tradition. Young-gun chefs like Mathieu Rostaing-Tayard dish up Lyonnais cuisine with youthful vigour in his Café Sillon – one of a crop of new restaurants giving the traditional bouchon a contemporary makeover.
An appetiser of rabbit kidneys is exquisite in presentation and delicate in flavour. A dessert of Mirabelle and raw milk cheese garnished with sage sparkles on the tongue.
His crispy tête de veau (boiled calf's head), flavoured with watercress, radish and leeks, would make a Mere Lyonnais proud.
The French king Henry IV once declared: "Good cooking and good wine are heaven on earth."
This devout city, whose Archbishop commends eating as a path to godliness, is undoubtedly blessed.
The writer travelled to France with the assistance of the National Gallery of Australia.
NEED TO KNOW
Getting there Paris is a two-hour fast train ride away, while the new Lyondres service offers a direct rail trip to London in five hours. Travellers can also fly from Australia to Lyon via Dubai on Emirates. See emirates.com
Staying there Located in a historic building on the banks of the Rhone river, the OKKO hotel is within walking distance of Lyon's main attractions and business district. The rooms are sleek, the downstairs communal bar and dining areas is stylish yet comfortable and the staff friendly. For information and bookings, phone +33 (0)4 28 00 02 50 or see okkohotels.com/en.
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