Gabriele - Lyons-la-Forêt

The restaurant has recently been relocated from in front of the Halles to the previously owned crêperie building further down the road. So don't get confused, it is not a crêperie anymore but a pizzeria. It has a lot of very comfy indoor tables, but also a very beautiful outdoor terrace with plenty of sittings. The owner, from Venezia in Italy, is such a funny character and it was a delight to chat with him (incl. in Italian) as he brings an authentic vibe to the place. We ordered a few pizzas to share and they were all delicious, especially the dough was thin and tasted great. But you have to try their desserts: the frozen tiramisu was amazing and the orange sorbet, literally served in a frozen orange, was just the perfect way to end our diner. I would highly recommend this place for the food, the staff, and the atmosphere.

No idea why this place is rated 7th out of the 9 places to eat in this delightfully pretty little town. We’ve been here for a week and have found the food to be excellent and the service great. Much better than many of the other seemingly more popular establishments round the main square. The carpaccio is my particular favourite, in fact we are heading there for another portion this evening!

My husband’s pizza was ok my osso bucco was really good. Our daughter received tagliatelle. They said they don’t have spagetti but later on brought spaghetti as aide dish next to my osso busco. But over all the place is nice, the food is good. The owner or the responsible person was very nice to our child.

The one star is for the fact that it is one of only 2 places open in Lyons on a Wednesday night and the other, the Grand Cerf is apparently owned by the same people, has mixed reviews and looks expensive compared to other places we have eaten in France. We had a starter of carpaccio which was a medium sized plate of tasteless meat that even for carpaccio was super thinly sliced, with OK rocket and parmesan very poor value (I think it might have been €10? . It came with a bread basket of the worst bread I have been served in France; stale supermarket 'pain industrielle ' baguette. We then had 2 pizzas and to be fair mine was just ok, with burrata that tasted of nothing. My husband 's was worse, with doughy base and tasteless cheap ham. He left most of it. I don 't blame the kitchen as clearly the operation is designed to maximize profit by using the cheapest ingredients. Our pizzas were €15 each and were anything but a premium product. We also had a bottle of pretty much the cheapest bottle of wine available on the menu, a Bardolino, which cost €26 and while OK must represent a mark up of at least 500%. In discussion with the manager, when asked why he served such terrible bread, which is pretty unforgivable in France of all places, replied that 'I don 't make the bread ', as if the quality was not of his doing!! In the end the manager insisted that as we were dissatisfied he wouldn 't charge us for my husband 's pizza. It 's hard to imagine how this place has any positive reviews.

A typical French pavement restaurant this place serves pizza as well as the limited traditional French menu fayre. All the food is nicely cooked and presented as expected. The boss-man waiter had a grasp of basic English which was helpful. My pizza was okay, nothing special. But our food arrived at different times which meant we didn’t all eat our food together, as one course, which is poor service in my opinion.