Best Restaurants in Cairo

Cairo's food scene is one of the Middle East's most distinctive — a city where ancient culinary traditions rooted in the pharaonic era have been enriched by centuries of Arab, Ottoman, and Mediterranean influence to create a cuisine that is immediately recognisable yet unlike any other in the region. Egyptian food is comfort food on a civilisational scale: ful medames (fava beans), kushari (lentils, rice, pasta, and tomato sauce), kofta, and baladi bread are the pillars of everyday Cairene eating.

The city's restaurant scene spans from the street food vendors of Khan el-Khalili and Downtown Cairo to sophisticated contemporary Egyptian restaurants in Zamalek and Maadi that are beginning to reframe traditional flavours for an international audience. The Nile Corniche's floating restaurant boats are a Cairo dining institution, and the rooftop restaurants of the city's hotels offer views over one of the world's most dramatic skylines — the pyramids visible on the horizon at dusk.