Cepheids are excellent tracers of young stellar populations (20-300 Myr). They are famous for providing very accurate distances, their ages are also very well known and, more generally, their physics is well understood. Moreover, their spectra show well-defined absorption lines leading to reliable abundances for numerous elements. For all these reasons they have been used for almost 30 years to study the Milky Way chemical evolu- tion. In this talk I will discuss specific challenges related to the analysis of Cepheid spectra and present some recent results using Galactic Cepheids. I will also say a few words about future perspectives in terms of observing facilities and analysis techniques.