Food History of Dijon

Key eras

1. The Valois dukes of Burgundy, 14th and 15th centuries

   Dijon was the seat of the dukes of Burgundy, and their palace still holds the ducal kitchens built around 1433 under Philip the Good: a square vaulted hall with six great fireplaces that could hold about thirty cooks. Tradition credits Margaret of Flanders, wife of Philip the Bold, with bringing the spiced honey bread that became Dijon's pain d'épices to the ducal court.

   Taste it todayPain d'épices

2. The mustard town, 14th to 18th century

   Mustard is recorded on the table of King Philip VI in 1336, and by the late Middle Ages Dijon was the centre of French mustard making, with the city's makers granted exclusive rights in the 17th century. Antoine-Claude Maille made his first mustards in 1747, and the Maille name still trades from a shop on Rue de la Liberté.

3. Condiments, cassis and the covered market, 19th century

   Auguste-Denis Lagoute, who ran the Café des Mille Colonnes, put crème de cassis into production in 1841. In 1856 Jean Naigeon replaced vinegar with verjuice and fixed the modern style of Dijon mustard, Grey Poupon followed in 1866, and between 1873 and 1875 the city built its iron-framed Halles on the site of the old Jacobin convent.

4. The gastronomic fair and Canon Kir, 1921 to 1968

   Mayor Gaston Gérard founded the Foire gastronomique in November 1921 to revive the cooking of the dukes, and in August 1930 his wife cooked the chicken with mustard, white wine and Comté that carries his name. Canon Félix Kir, mayor from 1945 until his death in 1968, served white wine with cassis to visiting delegations until the drink took his name.

5. From factory town to the Cité, 2009 to today

   The historic Amora-Maille mustard works in Dijon closed in July 2009, moving production to Chevigny-Saint-Sauveur nine kilometres away. In 2015 UNESCO listed the historic centre with the Climats of the Burgundy vineyards, and on 6 May 2022 the Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie et du Vin opened on the former hospital site.

Immigrant influences

Flemish ducal court

The marriage of Philip the Bold to Margaret of Flanders tied Dijon to Flanders, and Mulot et Petitjean credit her court with the honey and spice bread that Dijon turned into pain d'épices.

Taste it todayMulot et Petitjean

Cistercian monks of Cîteaux

The monks of Cîteaux Abbey assembled the Clos de Vougeot from 1109 onwards and walled it by 1336, laying out the Côte de Nuits vineyard model that now supplies Dijon's wine lists.

Maghrebi families

Families from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia settled in Dijon from the 1960s, many in the Grésilles housing estates in the north-east of the city, and are part of how the city eats every day.

Signature innovations

• Dijon mustard made with verjuice instead of vinegar, Jean Naigeon's 1856 change that set the modern style
• Crème de cassis macerated cold in alcohol, Auguste-Denis Lagoute's 1841 recipe from the Café des Mille Colonnes
• The kir, white Burgundy with crème de cassis, named for Canon Félix Kir, mayor of Dijon from 1945 to 1968
• Poulet Gaston Gérard: chicken with mustard, white wine, cream and Comté, first cooked on Rue du Petit-Potet in 1930
  Taste it todayPoulet Gaston Gérard
• Pain d'épices and nonnettes from Mulot et Petitjean, the last of Dijon's gingerbread houses, founded in 1796
  Taste it todayPain d'épicesMulot et Petitjean
• Mustard pumped fresh into stoneware pots at the Maille shop on Rue de la Liberté, trading there since 1845
• The Foire gastronomique, founded in 1921 by mayor Gaston Gérard and still held every autumn