There is only room for five tables.The revolving doors at Le Train Bleu, Place Louis Armand, Gare de Lyon, Paris (00 33 1 43 43 09 06; le-train-bleu ), are kept spinning by a succession of travellers popping in to gawp at the amazing interior. com), used to make the journey to Istanbul as part of the Orient Express. Now Galway oysters and Connemara lamb are on the menu.Enjoy a five-course meal in a dining car circa 1919 on the Hotham Valley Railway, Perth, Western Australia (00 61 8 9221 4444; hotham valleyrailway .au), as a carefully preserved diesel locomotive lights up the Etmylin forest at night.You’ll need to book in advance to eat in a converted carriage of the official train of the late Song Qingling, Honorary President of the People’s Republic of China, at Shanghai Laozhan, 201 Caoxi Beilu, Xuhui District, Shanghai (00 86 21 6427 2233). The only thing you get to choose is the size, from a slim 6oz to a sumo 30oz.. Aside from the fresh hell that is the daily commute, the romance of train travel persists if you know where to look.

But you won’t find it in the buffet, or in a fast-food joint on the platform. Take a culinary trip around 50 states at America, Union Station, 50 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington (00 1 202 682 9555; arkrestaurants ), where the menu runs from Santa Fe egg rolls to chicken pot pie.
Local ingredients such as ostrich fillet and Knysna oysters are on the menu aboard The Blue Train, Cape Town (00 27 12 334 8459; bluetrain.co.za), where you can travel through South Africa in five-star luxury.The three carriages that form The Pullman Restaurant at Glenlo Abbey Hotel, Bushypark, Galway, Ireland (00 353 91 526666; glenlo. The meat is hung for three weeks, and basted with a special secret sauce before grilling.The Gaucho Grill, 2A St Mary’s Street, Manchester, tel: 0161 833 4333 Northernmost outpost of the popular South American chain. Like the others in the group, it’s all about aged, flash-grilled Argentine steaks seasoned with chimichurri oil.Popeseye Steak House, 108 Blythe Road, London W14, tel: 020 7610 4578 All this Olympia favourite does is steak (rump, sirloin or fillet) served with good chips and salad.

Around £80 for two including wine and service14/20Scores 1-9 stay home and cook 10-11 needs help 12 OK 13 pleasant enough 14 good 15 very good 16 capable of greatness 17 special, can’t wait to go back 18 highly honourable 19 unique and memorable 20 as good as it getsSecond helpings: More restaurants where meat mattersChampany Inn Linlithgow, West Lothian, tel: 01506 834 532 This popular restaurant-with-rooms lying 20 minutes west of Edinburgh, is famous for its prime Aberdeenshire beef. When you are a butcher and a steak house, that’s not a bad start.The Butcher & Grill, 39-41 Parkgate Road, London SW11 tel: 020 7924 3999 Lunch served daily; dinner served Monday to Saturday. I wish more was made of the link between butcher and table, and I had hoped for a little more style on the plate, but they have one thing dead right, and that is the meat. A wedge of plum-and-orange cake with tarragon syrup (£5) is a perfectly nice, sticky domestic cake without any great depth of flavour, served with a caterer’s splodge of whipped cream, spiked with a mint leaf.With its happy-family prices, The Butcher & Grill is bound for glory, or, at least, commercial success. As for embellishments, there are two twigs of thyme, and that’s it.The burger looks pretty ordinary – just a burger on a bare bun, with some salad and a dill pickle – but the beef shows its age with real character. The exterior is crusty, the interior enjoyably crumbly, and the cooking medium rare, as ordered. “Stuff on the side”, which includes bread and butter, onion gravy and b?naise is listed as “free”, but then I guess they are usually included in the price.Then there are sides, for £2.50: from good, crisp, thickish chips that taste of potato and are served in a terracotta pot, to mash, new potatoes, green beans and grilled mushrooms.Puds are summery – Eton Mess, summer pudding, raspberry cream tart – with cheese, pickles and chutney for those who prefer to keep drinking.

The thin, juicy rib-eye is more medium rare than the ordered rare, but is full flavoured, tender and easy to cut, although a tree trunk would be easy to cut with these highly effective Trappeur steak knives. The global-roaming wine list, weighted towards meat-loving reds, has some off-the-beaten-track high-flyers, as well a juicy 2003 Allegrini La Grolla (£32.50) which is all pepper and cherries.The 200g (8oz) grilled rib-eye steak (£11.50) and the 200g Butcher and Grill burger (£8.50) are both very minimalist and very good. Dry-cured bacon with broad bean and pecorino salad (£6.50) consists of a thick, dryish slab of back bacon surrounded by a token garnish of double-peeled broad beans and no discernible pecorino. Am I the only one to prefer a broad bean salad with bacon, to a bacon salad with broad beans?It is the first official week of business, so things are naturally chaotic. Staff members have the usual short-term memory loss, the computer terminal has the usual gremlins, wines are warm, etc. At the next table, ma and pa order steak, son orders lamb, daughter orders a burger and the table is heavy with ketchup and chips.Dinner gets off to a flyer with the terrine of the day (£4.95), a gorgeous slab of freshly made, moist and almost spreadable ham hock terrine; all sweet, shreddy meat studded with lots of tiny capers. To your right is a well-stocked butcher’s cabinet; to your left, a charcuterie counter.