Born from an artisan's gesture in the 19th century, the pike quenelle has become one of the finest emblems of Lyonnaise gastronomy. At Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, it is offered with undiminished dedication.
Some dishes tell the story of a city. The quenelle is one of them. Tradition traces its birth to around 1830, when the Lyon pastry chef Charles Morateur is said to have had the idea of combining the delicate flesh of the pike, then abundant in the Saone, with a fine choux pastry. From this unlikely union emerged a melting, airy delicacy destined for a glorious future.
The recipe was refined over the decades. In the 1920s, the charcutier Joseph Moyne replaced the beef fat with butter and invented a spoon-shaping technique that gave the artisanal quenelle its elongated, pointed and instantly recognisable form. The quenelle then entered legend: the Meres lyonnaises proudly placed it on the menus of their restaurants, and Paul Bocuse himself made it one of the symbols of his cuisine.
At Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, this heritage is passed on every day. The Maison Giraudet, founded in 1910, perpetuates here a craft of great finesse, from pike to poultry, all the way to the famous quenelles coated in sauce Nantua, that rosy crayfish creaminess that comes from the Ain.
Beneath the vaults of the "belly of Lyon", choosing your quenelle means conversing with passionate artisans, extending a history of almost two centuries and taking home a living fragment of the gourmet soul of Lyon.