Le Train Bleu (restaurant)
Le Train Bleu is a restaurant with original " fin de siècle " equipment at the Gare de Lyon in Paris.
History
The Gare de Lyon, with all his luxurious restaurant, was built for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 on behalf of the railway company Compagnie Paris -Lyon - Méditerranée (PLM ); The architect was Marius Toudoire ( 1852-1922 ). The inauguration took place in presence of the then French President Emile Loubet on April 7, 1901.
Originally called this restaurant Buffet de la Gare de Lyon and in 1963 in Le Train Bleu renamed as a tribute to the former French luxury train Train Bleu CIWL, which reversed in 1922 from Calais via Paris to the French Riviera.
The self-professed regular guests at Le Train Bleu counted over the decades, among others, Coco Chanel, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Gabin, Colette, Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dalí. To date, the gourmet restaurant has lost none of its popularity; about 500 meals are served daily.
Interior
The huge dining rooms feature today in their original features, with polished floors, wood paneling, leather benches and furniture; the eye is overwhelmed by the lush gilded stucco and numerous sculptures. But the real eye-catcher are the pompous 41 wall and ceiling paintings depicting scenes from France. The thirty exporting painters were the elite of their time, so that one finds a quite museum section of the French painting around 1900 here.
Above the staircase leading to the tracks, you will find a wall painting by René Billotte (1846-1915); it shows Parisian motifs, namely, the Pont Alexandre III and the Palace of the Great 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 of France: Paris is a work by François Flameng ( 1856-1923 ), who also wall paintings in the Sorbonne and the Opera - Comique created.
The other two motifs are taken from Debufe (Lyon ) and Saint- Pierre (Marseille ), two lesser-known painters.
The main painting in the Great Hall decorated with the motif Theatre of Orange by Albert Maignan ( 1845-1908 ). There are also portraits by the then President of PLM, Derville, and the Director General Noble Maire; more of the then famous actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Réjane, singer Jean Bartet and the writer Edmond Rostand.
The paintings Villefranche and Monaco come from Frédéric Montenard (1849-1926), the founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux -Arts.
In the Golden Hall you will find the painting Nice, the War of the Flowers by Henri Gervex (1852-1929), a friend of Auguste Renoir.
The name of the painter Jean -Baptiste Olive (1848-1936) emblazoned on the two other paintings in the Golden Hall ( 18.5 m long, 9 m wide and 11 m high), St. Honorat and The Old Port of Marseille. In Marseille, born in 1849, Olive had a worldwide reputation as a marine painter.
A painting by Eugène Burnand (1850-1921) shows the massif of Mont Blanc ( by Burnand comes the famous panorama of the Bernese Alps, which was at the time shown on a large touring exhibition in Antwerp, Chicago, Geneva and Paris).
In 1972, the Le Train Bleu was included in the list of monuments of France.
The " Le Train Bleu " as a film set
The restaurant served in many films for individual scenes, including