Introduction

I often stay at the CitizenM Gare de Lyon when I’m in Paris, mainly because it’s conveniently located in walking distance to the Opéra de Paris on the square where the famous Bastille once stood.

My train back to Basel departs at 14h22, which gives me enough time for lunch at Le Train Blue in Gare de Lyon. The restaurant is located on the first floor, overlooking the main hall of the station. An elegantly winding grand staircase takes you up to the entrance.

The Restaurant

Le Train Bleu is like no other restaurant I’ve ever been to. The interior is richly decorated with paintings on the walls and ceiling and ornamented with elaborate, heavy chandeliers and arched windows looking out onto the square in front of the railway station.

Most of the tables are set for two. As you enter the premises, the restaurant is located on your right. On the left is a bar and behind that the bistro where you can have snacks and drinks.

The Menu

The menu is inspired by the French classics that are cleverly elaborated and reinvented by Chef Rostang and his team.

We start with an amuse bouche of wild mushroom mousse on basil oil.

For the starter, I go with the charred leeks with parmesan crumble in a vinaigrette. This is a nice dish. The cream cheese with the herbs on which the leeks are set has a refreshing, zesty flavour.

For the main course, I have the John Dory with smoked eel and artichoke hearts. This dish is quite simply stupendous! The smokey taste of the eel goes well with the fleshy fish and the watercress butter complements it.

The soufflé is a staple item on the dessert menu. The menu at Le Train Bleu changes with the seasons, roughly every three months, and with that so does soufflé. For the autumn season, they brought back their fabulous chocolate soufflé, which is incredibly rich, sinfully good and served with lime sorbet.

After dessert, I have the Casablanca green tea with mint by Marriage Frères. And just in case I’m still hungry, the tea is served with a small plate of friandises.

Boarding

By the time the meal ends, it’s just coming up to 14h00. My train to Basel departs in 22 minutes. I exit the restaurant into the main hall, where the departure board shows my train boarding from platform 23 in Hall 2, which is where trains to Switzerland usually depart from. And it looks like it’s going to be a busy service today.

The Cabin & Seat

For today’s service, I have a seat reservation on the lower deck, just so I won’t have to schlepp my heavy suitcase up the stairs. There is ample storage space for large and heavy items in the cabin.

The seats are in a 1 + 2 configuration, with some of them in an airliner arrangement. However, there are also seats facing each other for groups of four or six.

The seats are very comfortable and have a good recline. There is a power socket at every seat and a net in the seat back that provides decent storage space for smaller items. The seat pitch is fabulous.

Service

There is a bistro car located between the First and Second Class coaches. In addition, a trolley passes through the cabin selling snacks and drinks at your seat. Even if you’re seated on the lower level of the carriage, the attendant will come down to take orders. Additional information about the train and its service can be found in the SNCF app.

Conclusion

The trip from Paris to Basel is only three hours and four minutes and passes quickly. While wifi connectivity may not be quite as fast as on the German ICE, it still works well enough to get some decent work done. Alternatively, you can also while away your time watching the scenery go careening past your window at 320 km/h, which is what I often end up doing.

If Europe had a better, more reliable highspeed network like the one provided by the TGV, I am convinced short-haul air travel wouldn’t stand a chance. For the time being, though, the railways are hampered by the infrastructural limitations of the network, their apparent lack of harmonization, and limited interline agreements.