Le Train Bleu, and vin d'orange

Buying a ticket to old world French dining and hospitality

Hello Lemonistas,

Welcome to your latest edition of The Lemon Grove, in which we take a look at an jaw-dropping restaurant in Paris. You’ll find it in the unlikely setting of a railway station.

Gare de Lyon station in Paris

At the moment I’m in England, under grey skies and buffeted by wind and rain. So I thought it time to make a new batch of Vin d’Orange, that beautiful Provençal aperitif made with bitter oranges and eau d’vie. While it’ll take a coupl of months before it properly drinkable, I’ll likely wait until next Christmas before I decant it and serve it over ice.

In the next issue I’ll share a marmalade recipe, made with in-season Seville oranges and a secret ingredient!

Best wishes

Bruce

P.S. Hot off the Press … the latest batch of renewals and newly awarded Michelin-starred restaurants for the U.K. and Ireland have been announced. Read the complete listing here, and check out the so-called 'Cheapest Michelin Stars' lunches in the region here.

Not your average train station restaurant ceiling, Le Train Bleu in Gare de Lyon

Le Train Bleu is an extraordinary restaurant ready to serve Parisians and weary travellers a menu of traditional French food and wine while surrounded soul-lifting decorative arts. Here is a (edited for space) post about this rather fabulous place by a Lemon Grove subscriber who spends several months a year in the city. For more words, images and thoughts on a forever-changing Paris, subscribe to her blog here. 

Travellers rest at Le Train Bleu, Paris

Every time we arrive in Paris, we marvel at the French transportation system. The Paris metro zips you across town in a matter of minutes. The buses take a little longer but provide a tip-top view of Parisian icons along the way. And then there are the trains, both local RER and long-distance TGV (high-speed trains or trains de grande vitesse). And where you have trains, you have stations, superb monuments to the history of travel from the earliest steam to modern electric.  This station is a tribute to the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, with its cast iron construction and clear glass skylights spilling light onto bustling platforms.

Scenes from inside Le Train Bleu and out

In the city’s 12th arrondissement stands the regal Gare de Lyon with its imposing clock tower, reminiscent of Big Ben in London. Like the other railway stations, the original building went up in the 1850s before being rebuilt in the 1870s following a fire during the Paris Commune uprising. 

Its destinations are to the south; Nice, Marseilles, Antibes, Cannes, as well as the French Alps, Switzerland, Lausanne and Zurich.