Café à la Une, Toulouse

Time for restaurant number two on my "Interrail Top 3"; Café à la Une in Toulouse. I discovered this restaurant early on in my first semester. It's not in the centre of town, but is near where my first apartment was so I used to walk past it on my way home, and think how nice it looked! I first went with Isy and her boyfriend Stu, and loved it so much that it became one of my favourites to take visitors to. Therefore, when my dad came and joined me in Toulouse after James had left, we decided to book a table there (despite not being central, it is ALWAYS full, so book in advance!).

The garden of Café à la Une is one of its highlights for me. It is strung with fairy lights, and is covered by umbrellas and canopies, so despite the light rainfall we, and lots of locals, decided to sit outside under cover rather than going for the conservatory, or inside.

Another really cool thing about this restaurant is the menu. It is all handwritten and just looks amazing (although sometimes the handwriting can be hard to decipher!)

Nice play on the words "thon" and "ton"

We both went for the:

(Steak)

It's really cool because they have a fire inside so if you're there, the meat is flame cooked right in front of your eyes! I went for rare and my dad was very brave and downgraded from his usual well done to medium.  I was very proud. We asked for a side salad and two portions of chips - the waitress asked if two portions would be too much, to which I replied "non, on mange beaucoup"!

Absolute perfection

Salad with delicious dressing

The full plate 

I can't even describe how much I love the food here. The steak was amazingly cooked and very well seasoned, the chips are soft and salty and you never come across an airy, crunchy "chip shell", and as I said above, the salad dressing is really good. I think I could eat here for a week (and eat the same thing) and not get bored of it, it's just brilliant.

Despite being stuffed, you absolutely have to make room for pudding at Café à la Une. We both went for...

Need I say more?!

The French are absolutely obsessed with banoffee, and most places seem to do it better than in England, but this one takes the biscuit...(or the pie....?!) It is a huge pile of cream on delicious sticky caramel and banana, on a wafer thin pastry base (unusual not to have the biscuit base, but definitely not a bad thing!). It is then drizzled with even more caramel and is just about the richest and most decadent pudding ever. It probably doesn't bear thinking about how many calories are in it, so I didn't and just ate it all.

At this point in the meal, the light drizzle started to turn into a torrential downpour, which led to the mass exodus of French groups to the inside shelter, but our well chosen umbrella kept us nice and dry, and allowed us first hand view of the amazing lightning and the loudest thunder I have ever heard! We got laughed at by various groups of French people who said we were only still outside because we were English and therefore used to it!

The rain is just beginning.,.

It gets heavier, and only a few intrepid French remain

All in all, I think Café à la Une is probably one of the best restaurants I have ever been to. It's expensive, but the quality of the meat and other food cannot be denied, and the garden and general ambience is brilliant. Everyone should go to Toulouse just to eat here, it's worth the flight money, I promise!