Lifestyle Cafes in Cairo

Staying indoors is going to be just what grandma ordered in the coming months to escape the soaring mercury. And what better time than this to take advantage of the thriving café culture in Cairo? Cafes or coffeshops are the ideal places to feel the pulse of the city or to take a reprieve. From the ubiquitous small ahwas (Arabic for coffee and coffee houses) to international chains, Cairo has it all. Yet, in the midst of this abundance, some cafes have managed to carve out a niche for themselves. Here is my pick of the best.

The Al Fishawi Café, set in the heart of the medieval marketplace Khan el Khalili, transports you back to the time when the area was a busy caravanserai. Tea is served in chipped ceramic teapots on brass tabletops. Wooden furniture, mirrored walls and the stuffed crocodile all lend a certain ambience to the place. You will not get anything to eat here but you can enjoy sheesha with shay na’na (mint tea) or karkade (hibiscus juice) or even sample sahlab (brew of hot milk, sugar, rosewater and pistachios). A great place for people-watching, the best time to visit is in the evenings when the tourists have left and the locals have taken over. Literary buffs have an added incentive to visit - the Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz is said to have frequented the place.

Café Alain Le Notre has branches all over Cairo but the one in Al-Azhar Park scores on account of some great views from its terrace seating. After walking around the park, cool down with their delicious ice creams, while watching the sun set over the city of Cairo- the outline of the pyramids visible in the distance. One of the better views in Cairo.

If you cannot think of just lounging at a café and doing nothing, then the Ceramic Café in Mohandisseen is the place for you. Choose your piece from the large number of available earthenware shapes like cats, elephants, flower vases, toy cars, candle holders, figurines soap dishes and paint it to create a unique and individualistic piece. The café staff will put your “masterpiece” in a kiln and the glazed pottery will be ready to take home after five days. The perfect gift for a loved one or the pride of your mantelpiece! Ceramic Café has a second location in Heliopolis and the third will soon be opening in Maadi. The earthenware range from LE 30 to LE 150. A café outing that the children would definitely enjoy too.

If pottery is not your style, the Art Café in Maadi provides opportunity to indulge in a number of art and craft activities, including painting and decorating wooden boxes. Located in a quiet and leafy lane in Maadi, the café has a pleasant outdoor seating as well and provides the perfect setting and equipment to let your creative juices to flow.

Reminiscent of the downtown Cairo’s glamorous past is the legendary Café Groppi. Started by a Swiss national, Café Groppi is located at Talaat Harb Square and was the city’s original patisserie. Though its menu offerings may have lost their appeal, their chocolate displays are mouth watering. The aristocratic architecture of the place makes it easy to imagine its glorious past- when it was a watering hole for the well heeled Cairene society.

Across the street from Café Groppi is Café Riche, which commemorated its 100th anniversary last year and was once the intellectual hub of Cairo. A look at its portrait gallery reveals the famous personalities that patronized the café like Naguib Mahfouz and Om Kolthoum. Little wonder then that the Naguib Mahfouz novel “Karnak café” is set in Café Riche and its characters are inspired from the interesting people that the author met here. Their caramel custard is one of the best and if that is not incentive enough to visit the place, then the high odds of bumping into some well-known personalities and ensuing interesting conversations definitely will take your footfalls towards the café.

To have a cup of coffee while reading the latest bestseller or sipping tea while giving yourself up to a Jane Austen heroine’s pre-occupation with courtship and marriage is stuff that simple pleasures in life are made of. The Al Kotob Khan bookstore on the Lasilky road in Maadi has a small place to do just that. Bookshelves lined with books provide a natural enclosure for a coffee shop space and the place has an inspiring literary buzz. If you are having difficulty picking up a book for your bedside reading or for your coffee table, you can take your time to browse through the wide selection of books that the Diwan bookstore has on display at their “in-house” café in the Zamalek branch.

The Nile River is the most coveted view in Cairo. Café Greco recently opened at Sequoia in Zamalek. Its location is just one more reason to cheer, besides its great coffee, of course. From your vantage point at the Café Greco outlet in Sequoia, you can enjoy snippets from life on the River Nile-houseboats, water taxis that transport people to their destinations along the Nile, the slight breeze creating ripples and the stillness afterwards.

Speaking of houseboats, staying in Cairo, you have probably been on a boat at least once. For the café experience, the Trianon café on the Nile Dragon boat is a good choice. Apart from the fabulous location, the presentation of their food is feast for the eyes. Salads in bread baskets and soups in bread bowls!

Having a cup of coffee while enjoying a bird’s eye view of the Cairo city is what the coffeshop at the Cairo Tower offers you. The minarets, skyscrapers and billboards vying for a piece of the Cairene sky!

A few others that merit a mention are the 3Al Ahwa café in Dokki for its mouthwatering feteers, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Co in Zamalek for some of the best pastries. Segafredo in Zamalek is a good place to enjoy a hearty breakfast and is open very early.

This summer in Cairo, wake up and smell the coffee!

Cafes in Mohandiseen

Mohandiseen is the mecca of cafes in Cairo. Due to the abundance of offices in this suburb, there is no dearth of places for people to take a break from a hectic schedule or have a quick working lunch. Café Pasqua, Café Spectra and Café Ciccio are the three more popular cafes that I frequent

CAFÉ PASQUA

Address: 60 Lebanon Street, Lebanon Square, Mohandeseen

If you have a lot of time on your hands, and coffee is on your mind, then head to Café’ Pasqua for the best café mocha in town. Pasqua has an indoor and an outdoor seating. The wooden chairs and granite table tops are very welcoming and the earthy tones used on the walls provide a very relaxed and cozy ambience, though the indoors can get a bit stuffy because of the smoke. A pack of cards, backgammon board game, and a host of magazines-some of them in their maiden issue-are available to occupy you. Or just sit back and listen to the music being played while puffing on a shisha. If you are looking for food, Pasqua does not disappoint-pizzas, crepes and pastas dominate the menu. Start with a French onion soup which is delicious. The vegetarian crepe is very tasty with the cheese nicely melted and the capsicums crisp. All the pizzas are good but my personal favourite at Pasqua is the good old margerita pizza. The soups are between LE12 to LE 14, the pizzas around LE 20. On week-ends it gets crowded and is a favourite haunt to watch the football matches on its three large screens.

CAFÉ SPECTRA

Address:3, Canal El Suez Street, between Syria street and Gameat El Dowal Street, Mohandessin.

Tucked away in a lane off the busy Gamat-al-Dwal al Arabia road, Café Spectra is a quieter and up-market -more a restaurant than a café, actually. It is almost hidden by foliage but once you walk through the long corridor and enter through the entrance on your left, you come into a decent-sized eating area. The place is dimly lit and is ideal for an intimate dinner. The items listed in the menu have illustrations against them-this is a boon to vegetarians like me! Though the illustrations help to ascertain what you are ordering, it does not prepare you for the huge portions! You will definitely need those take-away bags. The Spectra Vegi Combo satiates the curious diner-with nachos, fried mushrooms, onion rings, French fries, spring rolls served with 3 mouth-watering dips. With two of us sharing the platter, we still could not finish the entire thing. The tomato soup and the mushroom soup are delicious too. The ingredients used are fresh and the soups are not loaded with cornflour. The huge portions made sure that we did not get beyond the soup and starter round. However, we did try their brownie which is served with three scoops of ice-cream. Scrumptious! But again I would recommend sharing.

CAFÉ CICCIO

Café Ciccio is smaller as compared to the Café Spectra and Café Pasqua. However, it have now taken over the pavement outside. What had started out as a makeshift venue with some chairs and a TV screen put up to accommodate the huge crowds at the café during the football finals of the Africa Cup of Nations has now become a semi-permanent structure. With the onset of winter, the outdoor seating will have few takers and so they have taken over a place next door and are expanding. The menu is limited with a few kinds of pizzas and pastas. They have an extensive ice-cream menu and the desserts are delicious too.