Lunch at the End of the Line: A Visit to Café de la Gare

Today’s culinary expedition found me once again at Café de la Gare—my Provençal fallback, my lunchtime anchor, my digestive north star. It’s the sort of place where the chairs are starting to remember the shape of you, and the waiter raises one eyebrow in that “Ah, back again are we?” sort of way. Frankly, I find it comforting. In the same way one might find comfort in an old cardigan that smells vaguely of lavender and cured meats.

The café sits at the bottom of the Luberon hills, in the shadow of Lacoste—a cliff-top village now essentially owned by the late Pierre Cardin, who apparently looked at a medieval hamlet and thought, this needs fashion. And so he bought most of it. One assumes he enjoyed the contrast between 11th-century stonework and 1980s shoulder pads.

But the real charm of Café de la Gare isn’t its celebrity benefactor or even the view—it’s the building itself. Once upon a time, this was Bonnieux’s railway station, a place where puffing locomotives stopped to let locals board with baskets of chickens and perhaps an opinion or two. Now, the railway is gone, its tracks replaced by an elegant, shady cycle path used mostly by Lycra-clad Parisians pretending not to be out of breath.

On this sunny Provençal day, I took a seat under the parasols and tucked into the formule déjeuner, a very French concept which sounds like it involves algebra but thankfully doesn’t. Things began at the cold buffet—a marvellous spread of roasted vegetables slick with olive oil, charcuterie, and pâté, which I sampled with the solemnity of a UNESCO inspector.

Main courses included either a fillet of local fish heroically paired with legumes or veal braised in a mushroom sauce that smelled like it had been simmering since last Tuesday. I went with the veal. Obviously. It was deeply satisfying in the way only slow-cooked meat in a heavily reduced sauce can be. The kind of dish that makes you grateful for elastic waistbands.

Now, I have recently made a personal vow to eat more slowly and enjoy my meals. You know, savour the flavour, notice the texture, pretend I’m in a mindfulness commercial. I lasted roughly four bites. Then my fork picked up speed like a runaway shopping trolley and suddenly I was scraping the plate for residual sauce like a man recently rescued from the Sahara.

And yet—I skipped dessert. I don’t know what came over me. Perhaps a moment of dietary clarity, or maybe I was temporarily possessed by the ghost of a disapproving nutritionist. Either way, I now deeply regret it. By the time I reached the car, the remorse had settled in like a bad tattoo, and I spent the drive home muttering obscenities at myself and contemplating whether a detour for cake might be justified. (It was. I didn’t. I’m still bitter.)

I rounded off lunch with an espresso and a litre of Orezza mineral water—a Corsican marvel that manages to taste like sparkling rainwater filtered through smugness. And it was perfect.

Now, for those of you who’ve travelled through Parisian train stations like Gare du Nord or Gare de Lyon—be reassured. Gare de Bonnieux is not like those places. It has no trains, no timetables, and no angry commuters trying to run you down with a wheeled suitcase. What it does have is serenity, cyclists, veal, and bathrooms that don’t require a hazmat suit.

So here’s to Provence. To railway stations with no trains, to meals that should never be rushed, and to the foolishness of skipping dessert.

Live well. Chew slowly.

Mark

All images taken with an iPhone XR.