Some places have a way of making time stand still, and the Café des Artistes is one of them. When Christian "Bubi" Blei and Chris "Sibi" Sibenaler took over the café three years ago, they made a deliberate decision to leave it exactly as it was.
The décor, the atmosphere, the spirit, all unchanged since the Quintus family era. And the regulars would not have it any other way.
As Sibenaler puts it, "if it ain't broke don't fix it. My football coach always used to say: if those same eleven men won the last match, you start the next one with the same team. It really is that simple, and that's exactly the approach we've taken here."
The café's story actually predates its famous name by more than a decade. It first opened in 1954 as the Café Gaspard under Jacques Gaspard Kessler, before being taken over by the Brasserie Funck-Bricher in 1956. It was not until 1966 that the Quintus family gave it the name Café des Artistes, under which it traded until 2022 and which Blei and Sibenaler have proudly kept.
Step inside and keep your ears open, and you will hear stories. The café draws a loyal crowd of regulars alongside curious tourists eager to experience a genuine slice of Luxembourgish culture.
Luxembourgish songs fill the air, and the pianists who perform there have a knack for reading the room, shifting seamlessly between German, French, and Italian depending on who is in. The only rule is that people can sing along. Five pianists currently share the Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening slots on a rotating basis.
The café's 60th birthday will be celebrated on 25 and 26 April.
