Le Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon in the 12th, while founded in 1900, floundered after its heyday, and was the butt of many jokes among the culinary elite related to its decor/food ratio, until the Rostang Group, following Eric Frechon's successful creation of Lazare in St Lazare and Thierry Marx's unsuccessful attempt at the Etoile du Nord in the Gare du Nord, took this project on. When I read Alec Lobrano's rave a while back I gasped, then went, was pleasantly surprised and took Colette back for our Thanksgiving fete today. Spoiler alert: It holds up1
Colette went with the scallops a la plancha on a bed of endive and chestnuts, I had a repeat of my last meal's superb leg of lamb, beautifully undercooked with roasted garlic and incredible potatoes a la dauphinoise; ending up with a Mont Blanc of sugar, sugar and sugar - my oh my!
Our bill, with a bottle of red Bordeaux and two glasses of white Bordeaux, one offered, plus two coffees, was 158.00E.
As to my reference to Peter Lorre, no, it's not this Dude, who is dressed as a Station Master circa 1900, the sort who used to announce departures to the (PLM) South, but now declaims Moliere etc., also helps people up the stairs. sing Happy Birthday and is a general dogsbody, in the best of its definitions. No, in this setting, with affluent folks dashing in and out with luggage besides great administrators and servers dashing in and out with food, you might well mistake it for the era of the Orient Express, etc.
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