A coffee day in Belval, from the first espresso to the last

In Luxembourgish, coffee is Kaffi. In Belval, it is also a clock.

Today, 1 October, is International Coffee Day, World Coffee Day to most of us, so I followed coffee in Belval from the first espresso to the last. Thirteen places, one long day, and a few things I learnt along the way.

06:30. An Italian start

The first cup in Belval is poured at MyCaffé on Rue de la Fonte, at half past six on weekdays. A cappuccino, the pistachio croissant, the low hum of regulars who know exactly what they will order.

It is a fitting place to begin. International Coffee Day was launched by the International Coffee Organization in Milan, at Expo 2015. In many Italian bars the espresso is drunk standing at the counter, al banco, in a few sips, and the day starts properly once it is gone.

07:00. Under the furnaces

At seven, Dalmat CoffeeHouse opens its doors at the foot of the blast furnaces, as it has since 2019. Specialty coffee, its own teas, homemade pastries, and the first laptops of the morning. They are celebrating today too.

Right next door, Cocottes opens at 07:30 with a counter of pastries, sandwiches and salads, in Belval since 2022. Order a coffee and a pastry, and “just a coffee” quietly stops being true. Come back between 17:30 and 18:30, Tuesday to Friday, and selected items are 40% off before closing.

At the same hour, a few steps away, Paul Le Café starts serving inside the Luxembourg Learning Centre. The building was once an ore hall. It held the raw material of steel, and now it holds books, students and croissants. From the terrace you can look straight up at the old structure while your coffee cools.

07:45. Where coffee begins

Coffee does not start brown. It starts as the seed of a red fruit, a coffee cherry, which usually holds two of them. Picked, dried and shipped, those seeds arrive pale green, and they smell more like grass than breakfast.

Then they meet heat. At Jolt Coffee on Avenue du Swing, you can see the roastery from the counter. As the beans darken they swell and crack, a sound roasters call the first crack, rather like popcorn. Jolt opens at 07:45 on weekdays, there is a terrace, dogs are welcome, and the tenth regular hot drink is on the house.

Because coffee is a crop, it has seasons. That is why Black Notes Coffee Roasters on Avenue du Rock’n’Roll changes its coffee with the origin and the harvest. The best question at their counter is the simplest: “What are you roasting now?” Have a cup there, or take a bag of beans home for the weekend.

12:00. Lunch, and a second cup

Noon is when Café Saga opens, with a short lunch menu that changes often. The coffee after lunch here tends to turn into a conversation, and on quiz and karaoke nights, into an evening.

Over at Belval Plaza, Athena Cafe shares its North Gallery terrace with Pasta4You. One of you orders a coffee and a salad, the other orders pasta, and you still sit at the same table.

Hugo’s Café has kept its kiosk since Belval Plaza opened in November 2008. It is the coffee before the cinema, the sandwich between shops, with 5% off on weekdays for students with their card.

15:00. Coffee from further away

At LuxBoba most people come for bubble tea. Ask instead for the Vietnamese coffee, served under its Café Saigon name. In Vietnam, coffee is traditionally made in a small metal filter called a phin, which drips slowly into the cup, often over sweetened condensed milk. It is coffee that asks you to wait, and the seating here lets you.

Upstairs, on the Plaza’s second floor, the small tea room at INSPIRE serves organic coffee and matcha, no massage booking required. Matcha is green tea ground to a fine powder and whisked into water, so you drink the whole leaf.

16:00. A spring in the park

Late afternoon belongs to Pavillon Belval in Parc um Belval, open from 16:00 every day. Coffee and cake, a crêpe, later a cocktail. The building was designed to recall the mineral spring that once made the name Bel-Val known.

It is a good place to remember that a cup of coffee is almost entirely water, and that Bel-Val was known for its water long before this pavilion served a single cup.

And on Sunday

When most of Belval rests, Golden Bean on Avenue du Rock’n’Roll does not. Open every day, from 10:00 at the weekend, with wifi, a terrace and beans to take home.

Coffee in Belval by the clock

When	Where
The very first cup	MyCaffé, from 06:30 on weekdays
Before 08:00	Dalmat (07:00), Black Notes, Cocottes, Paul and Athena (07:30), Jolt (07:45)
Saturday	Almost all of them. Café Saga is the one that rests
Sunday	Golden Bean (10:00 to 19:00) and Pavillon (16:00 to 22:00)
After 19:00	Athena and Hugo’s (until 20:00), Pavillon (until 22:00), Café Saga (Tuesday to Friday)

Hours change, and the place pages always carry the latest. Every café in the neighbourhood lives on the café and coffee page.

The people behind the cup

This year’s International Coffee Day theme is “Celebrating Coffee, Honouring the People Behind Every Cup”. In Belval, that means the baristas who know your order before you say it, and the roasters who can tell you where your beans came from. Further back, it means the people who grew and picked those red cherries, thousands of kilometres away, so that someone here could start their morning at 06:30.

So, where are you having yours today? And if your favourite cup in Belval is missing here, tell me where it is. I will go and have one.

Take Care ☀️