Le Train Bleu
Le Train Bleu is a restaurant with original fin-de-siècle furnishings in the Gare de Lyon in Paris .
history
The Gare de Lyon, including its luxurious restaurant, was built on the occasion of the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 on behalf of the Compagnie Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée (PLM) railway company; The architect was Marius Toudoire (1852–1922). The inauguration took place on April 7, 1901 in the presence of the then French President Émile Loubet .
Originally this restaurant was called Buffet de la Gare de Lyon and was renamed Le Train Bleu in 1963 in homage to the former French luxury train Train Bleu of the CIWL , which from 1922 ran from Calais via Paris to the French Riviera .
Confessing regulars at Le Train Bleu over the decades have included Coco Chanel , Brigitte Bardot , Jean Gabin , Colette , Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dalí . To this day, the gourmet restaurant has not lost any of its popularity; Around 500 meals are served daily.
interior
The huge dining rooms still impress today in their original furnishings, with polished floors, wood paneling, leather benches and furniture; the eye is overwhelmed by the lush, gilded stucco and numerous sculptures. The real eye-catchers, however, are the 41 pompous wall and ceiling paintings, which depict scenes from France. The thirty painters who carried out the work were the elite of their time, so you can find a cross-section of French painting around 1900 in a museum.
Above the stairs that lead to the tracks there is a mural by René Billotte (1846–1915); it shows Parisian motifs, namely the Pont Alexandre III and the palace of the World Exhibition of 1900.
The three ceiling paintings in the Great Hall (26 m long, 13 m wide and 11 m high) are dedicated to the three largest cities in France: Paris is a work by François Flameng (1856–1923), who also painted murals in the Sorbonne and the Opéra Comique created.
The other two motifs come from Debufe ( Lyon ) and Saint-Pierre ( Marseille ), two lesser-known painters.
The main painting in the Great Hall is decorated with the motif Theater of Orange by Albert Maignan (1845–1908). There are also portraits of the then president of the PLM, Derville, and the general manager Noblemaire; more from the then famous actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Réjane , the singer Jean Bartet and the writer Edmond Rostand .
The paintings Villefranche and Monaco are by Frédéric Montenard (1849–1926), the founder of the Société nationale des beaux-arts .
In the Golden Hall you can find the painting Nice, the War of Flowers by Henri Gervex (1852–1929), a friend of Auguste Renoir .
The name of the painter Jean-Baptiste Olive (1848–1936) is emblazoned on the other two paintings in the Golden Hall (18.5 m long, 9 m wide and 11 m high), St. Honorat and The Old Port of Marseille . Born in Marseille in 1849, Olive had a worldwide reputation as a marine painter .
A painting by Eugène Burnand (1850–1921) shows the mountain range of Montblanc (Burnand also created the famous panorama of the Bernese Alps , which was shown on a major exhibition tour in Antwerp, Chicago, Geneva and Paris) .
In 1972 Le Train Bleu was added to the list of architectural monuments in France.
The "Le Train Bleu" as a film set
The restaurant has served as the backdrop for individual scenes in numerous films, among others
- 1972: traveling with my aunt , engl. Travels with My Aunt based on the novel of the same name by Graham Greene , directed by George Cukor .
- 1990: Nikita , directed by Luc Besson .
- 1998: Place Vendôme , directed by Nicole Garcia .
- 2003: Sole Sisters , directed by Pierre Jolivet .
- 2007: Mr. Bean is on vacation , engl. Mr. Bean's Holiday , directed by Steve Bendelack .
literature
- Paris. The most beautiful restaurants , Cologne, DuMont 1994, pp. 227-235.
- Pauline Prevost-Marcilhacy, Le décor du Buffet de la Gare de Lyon. In Karen Bowie (ed.) Les grandes gares parisiennes au XIXe siècle , Paris 1984, pp. 144–158.