Why go
It is a good choice for coffee flavour in a colder, layered form. Its name carries a specific Paris story: cafés renamed the earlier café viennois in honour of Liège’s resistance during the Battle of Liège in 1914. The combination of coffee ice cream, chantilly and coffee makes it a dessert rather than simply an iced drink.
The full story
Despite its name, café liégeois did not originate in or around Liège. In France it was first known as café viennois. During the First World War, Liège’s resistance delayed the German advance in 1914, giving France time to reorganize. Paris cafés then renamed the dessert café liégeois to honour the city, which had been shelled with Austrian guns. In Liège itself, the older café viennois name continued for a time. The dessert combines lightly sweetened coffee, coffee-flavoured ice cream and chantilly cream; a common version uses two scoops of coffee ice cream with one of vanilla. Crushed roasted coffee beans may finish the cream. The name therefore turns an ice-cream dessert into a small record of Parisian wartime symbolism. It also helps explain why a menu item named for Liège can be a French café dessert rather than a Belgian regional specialty.