Great restaurant for Egyptian food: trendy, beautiful setting and tasty food. Also ideal for after-dinner relaxing, drinking & smoking shisha.

On 26th of July av., Zamalek quarter.

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This cafe in Mohandeseen area has very good Egyptian food. The atmosphere is warm and decor upbeat and attractive.

You MUST meet the owner, Mahmoud. He is very colourful and has a great sense of humour. He makes you feel like a long lost brother. Enjoy!

#40 Kahn Younes Demesk St. which is off Shebab St. 1 block from Radio Shack

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This cafe is rough and raucous, with the most varied clientele ranging from footpads to intellectuals, musicians, businessmen, down-at-heels actors, students and dons from the nearby AUC (American University in Cairo). This is one of the few places left in Cairo that savours the city's past and colourful diversity, but it's a past that is firmly in the present. It's a great place to have a beer and thrash out the issues of the day, practise some Arabic or simply to make contact with a real cross-section of Cairo life. Moving among its French decor - faded mirrors, marble tables and creaking ceiling fans - is Saad, the wonderfully eccentric barman and a real character who will welcome you warmly with wonderful Egyptian humour. This place is a must for the adventurous but not for the fainthearted. I loved it throughout my twenty years in Cairo and know I still have a place there whenever I return.

The Hurreya Cafe, Midan Bab al-Khalq, behind the AUC. It's on the corner, across the square from the market.

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This is the oldest hotel in Cairo, with a really cool bar and a manual elevator. It has a nice, genuine colonial atmosphere.

Windsor Hotel, 19 Alfi Bey Street. near the cinema.
Tel : +20 2 591 5810
www.windsorcairo.com

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The old Islamic quarter, known as Darb al-Ahmar, is great for a stroll through markets and stalls that feel like they haven't changed in five hundred years. Restoration work has been carried out on a series of mosques in this area which are architecturally stunning. I was lucky enough to be given an impromptu tour at night around one of them/ The open roof revealed the stars. The Nile Hilton, not far from the Egyptian Museum (which is a must) has a rooftop bar which is definitely worth a visit for a drink overlooking the Nile at sunset. You don't have to be a hotel guest - just get in the lift and head to the top. One drink might be enough for some as it is not cheap but definitely worth the view.

Nile Hilton, 1113 Corniche El Nil, Cairo 12344.
Tel : 00 20 2 578 0444/ or 578 0666.
www.hilton.com

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Situated in a boring and slightly scruffy building, this place is a real find. The three-star Longchamps Hotel is on one of the upper floors and, with two large terraces, is one of the most relaxing places in Cairo. Its decor could be described as a mix of elegant, Bohemian and ethnic. But what most people find surprising is the food. Menus are simple but dishes are invariably delicious to the point of being memorable. If you are looking for somewhere inexpensive, quiet, clean and pleasant to stay in Cairo, this is it.

Hotel Longchamps, 21 Ismail Mohamed Street, Zamalek. 3409644
Tel : 00 20 2 735 2311/12.
www.hotellongchamps.com

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This is the place to eat out in style. Rossini is a sophisticated Italian seafood restaurant in Heliopolis with a piano bar upstairs and a garden at the back. It has great food, excellent cocktails (which are difficult to find in Cairo outside five-star hotels) and top service.

Rossini, 66 Omar Ibn el-Khattab Street.
Tel : +20 2 291 8282

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Sangria is a cool restaurant and bar built around an old tree on the banks of the Nile. Enjoy a view of Zamalek from the open terrace, which during winter months is well heated. The cuisine is mostly South-East Asian and the crowd tends to be mainly young and wealthy, judging by the posh cars in the restaurant carpark. It's a great place for a beer.

Sangria, Corniche El Nile.
Tel : +20 2 579 6512
On the opposite side of the road from the Conrad Hilton towards the Arkadia Shopping Centre.

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Latex is the name of the nightclub attached to the Nile Hilton Hotel, which, if you're into dance music and you're under forty, is the place to be at the weekends (Thursday and Friday nights being the equivalent to the British Friday and Saturday nights).

It can sometimes be quite difficult to get in and it's a bit pricey by Egyptian standards but if you look western and have a laydee in tow, you'll be alright! Men will find it harder than the women to get past the thick-necked bouncers but all told, they're a fairly placid bunch.

My personal advice is to drink the local lagers (Sakara is my favourite) instead of the imported spirits. They're much cheaper and do the same job.

1113 Corniche El Nil, Cairo
Tel: 20 2 5780444/5780666.

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Don’t expect to smash plates or dance the night away here. This is the spiritual home of Egypt’s liberal intelligentsia; a place where dissidents, writers, artists and western NGO workers put the world to rights over a feta salad and a bottle of ouzo.

First floor, above Groppi's tea-room, Talaat Harb Square, entrance on Sharia Bassiouni; Tel: +20 2 575 0822

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