Food Critic Reveals: SNCF Dining Cars Serve Dishes That Truly Delight!

For Stéphanie Le Quellec, it’s McDonald’s chicken nuggets: a crispy golden breading, warm and tender at the center with a hint of salt. Éric Fréchon prefers Haribo gummy crocodiles—colorful, stretchy, and sweet. Hélène Darroze goes for Caprice des Dieux: a smooth, ultra-creamy cheese that melts slowly in your mouth with no rind or rough texture. Even the most refined palates sometimes revert to comforting, uncomplicated foods. Accustomed to intricate sauces and precise cooking, culinary journalist Robin Panfili fully embraces his unapologetic indulgence. He, who frequents top Michelin-starred restaurants, also enjoys a McDonald’s McFlurry without syrup but with M&M’s on top, savoring the contrast between the ice cream and chocolate bits, and the cream puff from Mamiche, known for its light pastry and rich, vanilla filling.

On the savory side, he enjoys beef and cheese skewers from all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurants, juicy and greasy as can be, or the sausage wrapped in a pancake from the Lices market in Rennes. In his newsletter Entrée, plat, dessert, now working with Le Fooding, he celebrates these everyday pleasures, far removed from foams and white Alba truffles. These are dishes that provide warmth and fill the stomach for just a few euros. Among them, one dish holds a special place in his culinary imagination. He had already dedicated a post to it on his social media years ago. In his view, it even represents a “true perfect bite.” He openly admits, this dish isn’t anything extraordinary on paper. Its appeal comes from what it offers: warmth, fat, and meltiness at the right moment.

Poetically, Robin Panfili states: “It’s there, not perfect, but always ready to serve, like a candle found in a drawer during a power outage in the midst of a storm”. More pragmatically, he tempers his praise: “partly melty, partly burnt,” he describes the dish as “sturdy and a bit clumsy.”

Many customers confirm, it’s often burnt on top. Yet, everyone keeps coming back to it. You might have tasted it—it’s the SNCF’s croque-monsieur! Toasted bread, oozing cheese, and a thick béchamel sauce: this snack isn’t gourmet, but it delivers real pleasure to travelers biting into it.

Priced at 7.90 euros at the snack car, the SNCF croque-monsieur wins people over with its generosity. The béchamel oozes out, the cheese is slightly browned, the bread somewhat soft. Designed for quick eating, it satisfies and comforts immediately. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you expect from a dish.