Marie Siska has been baking waffles in Belgium for 100 years
In 1919, Marie Siska (1881-1948) and her Dutch entrepreneurial husband Petrus Dossche started a waffle house in Zoutelaan in Knokke, although the history of waffles in the family goes back to 1882. Today, exactly 100 years later, it has become a modern tearoom, restaurant and hotel in one. Since 1987, the third generation of the Dossche family has ensured the legendary institute’s success and the fourth generation is already fully up and running. Marie Siska can rest in peace.
Her homemade waffles are praised to the skies, in Belgium but also abroad. On busy summer days, the demand can easily reach 1,000 waffles per day. The pastry is therefore of the highest quality right from the start. And since Stefan Dossche invested in a brand-new bakery, the pastry has improved considerably. The secret dough recipe has not changed and the original waffle irons from 1919, cast by Siska’s brother-in-law who was a smith, are still used.
Sooner or later, everyone finds their way to the shop: ordinary people, ministers, parliamentarians and many other influential people. The stars who performed at Knokke’s Casino, such as Gilbert Bécaud, Josephine Baker, Ava Gardner, Paul Anka and The Platters, all dropped in at Marie Siska. Or artists such as René Magritte, Henri-Victor Wolvens and the American icon Keith Haring. King Leopold III even had his own table there.
The Dossche family has systematically rejected the numerous lucrative offers to take over the shop.
