Le Train Bleu Gare de Lyon (Paris, FRANCE) ★★★☆☆

Our tour of some of the oldest restaurants in Paris continues tonight. Following a very busy day that saw us cover The Louvre, Île Saint-Louis, Île de la Cité and Le Marais (all on foot) all within a few hours, we are going to finish the night at Gare de Lyon.

The striking clock tower at the station quickly caught our eyes but after a few boring photos, it was time to check out tonight’s dinner venue, Le Train Bleu.

Le Train Bleu is a historic restaurant located within the Gare de Lyon in Paris, renowned for its opulent Belle Époque décor and exquisite French cuisine. Opened in 1901, the restaurant offers a unique dining experience that captures the essence of Parisian elegance, with ornate frescoes, gilded moldings and plush seating.  

The dining room features a series of connected dining rooms each with paintings on the walls and ceiling to represent various cities and regions in France.

In recent years, legendary chef Michel Rostang has taken over the menu at Le Train Bleu, with Samir Balia running the day-to-day operation of the kitchen. So, expectation was high.

Baby leaf salad (€13) – We all agreed to start things off with a salad dish first (yeah, we were sharing). The generous portion of garden green was topped with dried apricots, walnuts and hazelnuts, finished off nicely with olive oil from Baux de Provence and balsamic vinegar.

Lime marinated octopus (€34) – The second starter to arrive was octopus sliced into smaller pieces, and matched with chickpea and cumin cream, spice and coriander condiments. A bit of Moroccan twist there.

Sea bass carpaccio with herbs (€36) – By far the best dish of the evening by at least a mile. The freshness of sea bass was beautifully matched with avocado, samphire and pomegranate sauce verge so some lovely acidity to complement the sweetness of the fish. That was nicely done.

Lobster with verbena (€55) – The verbena flavored pasta was more tubular in shape than a typical ravioli. Just after a single bite, little one already decided it was time to move on from this "ravioli" thanks to its strong, earthy notes. (He did finish the lobster though 😆).

Yeah, he wasn't a happy camper. So, I ended up picking up where he left off and honestly, I couldn't really blame him. The ravioli stuffed with lobster mousse was really rubbery like eating plastic. Not great.

Tender roasted langoustines (€39) – This took a while to arrive; in fact it arrived long after most dishes were already done. During this prolonged wait, we had tried very hard to get in touch with our server but obviously, only his assistant was available to field our questions and he wasn't a very capable English speaker. It then became apparent to us that this was way over his pay grade. And finally, our server showed up (after at least 20 minutes) and informed us that the langoustines would finish their roasting in 10 minutes. Great news.

Anyways, this turned out to be a fairly nice dish. The tender roasted langoustines came with really nice brown crust, meshing well with the variations of zucchini and shellfish coulis. For me, probably the second best dish tonight (even better without the long wait).

I left my seat again for a couple more photos of the impressive dining room which looked even better following sunset. 

It was a mixed bag for me tonight. Some dishes were good (sea bass tartare and langoustines) and some weren't (ravioli) but the Belle Époque décor was half of the reason I came here for so I didn't leave here totally disappointed. My team however looked like they had the life sucked out of them after the meal. Madame Taekwondo even said for all the dinner venues I have chosen for us over the years, this was by far the worst dining experience. I am taking it as a compliment.

Food Rating: 6.2/10

Price: €€€€

Address: Gare de Lyon, Pl. Louis Armand hall 1, 75012 Paris, France

Closest Metro Station: Gare de Lyon

Tel: +33 (0)1 4343-0906

Website: www.le-train-bleu.com

Opening Hours: 11:15am - 2:15pm, 7:00pm - 10:15pm daily