Paris for Lunch? Why Not?

No bags to pack, no passport needed!   

Just a willingness to travel back in time for a dining experience that transports you to a French dining car in the 1880s.

 

As we made our way up the stairs to genteel Le Train Bleu, we saw a narrow hallway lined with vintage train ads from the 19^th century.   

Stepping into the restaurant – or rather, the dining car - we were transported into a cozy, dimly-lit atmosphere, adorned with Victorian lamps and brass luggage racks.  

 

Starched linens covering two rows of tables, walls and ceilings padded with forest-green velvet interiors, accented with dark wood panels and round-cornered windows, take you away from the hustle and bustle of life.

 

 

 



Given choices of anything from Croque-monsieur, Steak Frites, Salade Nicoise, to American dishes of Maryland crab cakes, roasted Long Island duck, chopped salads, etc., the cuisine was delightful.

 

 





Le Train Bleu is modeled after the dining car of the Calais-Mediterranée Express, a luxury French night express train which ran between Calais and the French Riviera from 1886-2003.  Transporting the upper crust of Britain during the 1920’s, this train received its name due to the deep blue sleeping cars.  Early passengers included the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII, Charlie Chaplin, designer Coco Chanel, Winston Churchill and writers F. Scott Fitzgerald, Evelyn Waugh and Somerset Maugham.

Appearing on the French channel ORTF, a French television series, Le train bleu s'arrete 13 fois (The Blue Train Stops 13 times), which ran between October 8, 1965, and March 11, 1966. Featuring one mystery episode for each of the thirteen stops of Le Train Bleu between Paris and Menton, based on short stories by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. 

Philip Marlowe comes around after being knocked unconscious and sees a poster advertising traveling the French Riviera by The Blue Train, in Raymond Chandler’s novel, The Lady in the Lake (1943).

 

 



Also the subject of an Agatha Christie murder mystery (being a popular European train it’s to be expected), The Mystery of The Blue Train, was published in 1928.

Dining in Le Train Bleu, was truly an escape – so much so, that sometimes you thought you might have actually felt the movement of the dining car.

Bon appétit!