Painting on the facade of a building opposite Les Halles in Lyon, a gigantic portrait of Paul Bocuse stares out at gourmands. It's an oversized work, worthy of the giant. His restaurant, the renovated Auberge de Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or (southeastern France), celebrates its centenary this year and attracts gourmets more than ever with some of its iconic dishes, such as pikeperch quenelles and whole poultry in a bladder.

Six years after his death, no one has forgotten "Monsieur Paul." "The reputation of Lyon's cuisine is still very much linked to Bocuse and the traditional bouchons [the traditional Lyon bistros]," said Luc Dubanchet, founder of the Omnivore Festival, who oversees gastronomy-related functions at GL Events. "It retains a very traditional, even folkloric image, focusing on the terroir, pork products and Beaujolais. But the Lyon food scene is also being shaken up by unblinkered young chefs, eager for new experiences!"

For the specialist, now based in Lyon, a revolt has been at work for some 10 years. Among the first agitators was Jean-François Têtedoie, chef of Café Terroir, whose stone walls have been lined with bottles of Chartreuse. The son of a Lyonnais bouchon owner (Florence Périer) and a Michelin-starred father (Christian Têtedoie), he has created a menu that gently glides towards modernity.

"We sometimes make 'Lyon specialties': cervelas sausages, pieds paquets... I just don't allow myself to do frogs, which are now imported from Poland," explained the owner. "But I don't want to just reproduce things. Rather than a Nantua crayfish sauce, now endangered in the region, I prefer salmon trout from Isère with a verjuice sauce." His wine cellar, with its 25,000 bottles, follows the same logic of transition: It features an astonishing collection of Beaujolais (300 labels), with a focus on natural wines and old vintages.

When you lift the lid off Lyon's cooking pot, you'll find it's bubbling with energy, sass and hybridization. Certain troublemakers have long been whetting appetites. The premises of La Bijouterie, an avant-garde haunt that thrilled taste buds for seven years, are now home to the restaurant Leptine and the adventurous cuisine of Steven Thiebaut-Pellegrino. In an eccentric decor of red neon lights and dried fish, the owner relies on unusual ingredients and flavors.

Examples? Chard leaves, which he mischievously slips into a deliciously acidic meat sauce without veal jus. "I like to go for the unknown," he confided over a hibiscus tea made in-house. "When I go shopping in the grocery stores of Guillotière, a working-class district in the city center that has been welcoming migrants for a century, I ask the mothers what they buy and how they cook it, to inspire me. Our dish titles are very succinct, a little mysterious, the beginning of a discussion. In cooking, we take turns showing off the pan to explain to customers what they're about to eat."

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