Egyptian classics
Iconic Egyptian Food in Cairo: Koshary, Grills & Street Food
If you only have a few meals in Cairo, spend them on the food the city actually runs on. This is a first-timer's crawl through the essentials — what to order, and the institutions that do each one best.
Koshary — the national dish
Rice, lentils, pasta, chickpeas, crispy onions and a sharp tomato-vinegar sauce in one gloriously messy bowl. Koshary Abou Tarek is the four-storey downtown temple to it — the bowl against which all others are measured. For a polished, sit-down version of street food, Zooba reinvents koshary, taameya and hawawshi in its Sunday best.
Ful, taameya & the downtown classics
Egyptian breakfast is fava beans (ful) and herb-green falafel (taameya). Felfela is the downtown classic every guidebook promises — and it keeps the promise. Around the corner, Estoril is a Downtown time capsule of meze and old-Cairo atmosphere that's been feeding artists and editors for decades.
Charcoal grills & the brave stuff
For kebab, kofta and the smoky end of Egyptian cooking, Andrea Mariouteya is a Giza institution for charcoal chicken and fresh feteer under the trees. And for the adventurous, Kebdet El Prince in Imbaba serves the most famous liver and offal in the country — plastic chairs, no airs, pure Cairo.
Tea in the Khan
End where Cairo has ended its evenings for two centuries: El Fishawy, the mirrored café in the heart of Khan El Khalili, for mint tea and a shisha amid the bustle of the old bazaar.
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