Cairo Food Week Marks Its Fourth Edition With Chef Takeovers Across the City

Cairo Food Week held its fourth edition from 24 September 2026, a ten-day citywide programme run by Flavor Republic Ventures. Scene Eats reported that it opened with a private dinner at TLT Ivory Park for the partners who have backed the festival since it began. More than 70 guests ate a menu led by chef Youssef Eid, founder of the catering concept Blankusta, and the conversation turned to sustainability: zero-waste cooking, how raw materials are sourced, and room for newer ventures such as the festival’s aquaponics partner, NatureWorks.

What was on the programme

Beyond the dinners, the programme included Tables of Egypt, a pop-up museum at the Grand Egyptian Museum, and an all-day live podcast at KOOK Zamalek. A culinary exhibition, Architecture of Taste, ran at Tamara Haus in Downtown Cairo.

International chefs cooked in Cairo’s own kitchens. Francesco Brutto of Michelin-starred Venissa took over Mazeej; Gabriela Chamorro brought the Central American cooking of Dubai’s Girl & the Goose to Izakaya; and Australia’s Paul Farag hosted a night at Sachi on Park Street. Palm Hills, the festival’s west-district partner, hosted Danish chef Bo Bech at Mamina’s and London’s Larry Jayasekara, of The Cocochine, at Scalini, both in Palm Central. The partnership also extended east, where the Michelin-starred German-Moroccan chef Fayçal Bettioui cooked at The Live Kitchen in Palm Hills Katameya, Scene Eats reported on 4 October.

How it ended

Brazilian chef Manu Buffara cooked the final dinner at The Glass House at Palm Hills One in West Cairo, with a menu that moved between picanha, hamachi and crawfish, according to Scene Eats on 12 October. The festival also held a closing ceremony at Studio Samara, a 1930s Cairo cabaret night in five acts hosted by M Squared, which Scene Eats covered on 6 October.

An experiment in 2023, it has since become an annual fixture on the city’s calendar.

How the festival got here

Flavor Republic, run by co-founders Hoda El-Sherif and Sherif Tamim, launched Cairo Food Week in 2023 as an experiment in bringing top international chefs to Cairo, and it has since become an annual fixture on the city’s calendar. The founders say its aim is to put Egyptian food and Egyptian chefs on the global gastronomy map. According to a Scene Eats preview, the first edition opened with an invitation-only dinner at the Grand Egyptian Museum, brought in guests including Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, and used Khufu’s among its host restaurants. Khufu’s has since been named No. 1 on MENA’s 50 Best list, as our report on the 2026 ranking shows.

By its second year the festival had staged a banquet beneath a statue of Ramesses II at the museum and a farm-to-table dinner among desert palms. The third edition, which began on 25 September 2025, brought guests including Qais Malhas of Amman’s Shams El Balad and Solemann Haddad of Dubai’s Moonrise, Scene Eats reported. Cairo’s restaurant openings continue alongside the festival, among them Nobu’s first Cairo restaurant at Eastown.

Sources & fact-check7

1. Cairo Food Week Returns to Rewire the City’s Culinary ConversationScene Eats, 8 June 2026
2. Cairo Food Week 2026 Opens With Nod to Past, New Vision for FutureScene Eats, 25 September 2026
3. Palm Hills Takes Cairo Food Week East With Michelin-Starred BettiouiScene Eats, 4 October 2026
4. Studio Samara Hosts a Cairo Food Week 2026 Grand Finale in Five ActsScene Eats, 6 October 2026
5. Palm Hills One Becomes Cairo Food Week’s Final Dining RoomScene Eats, 12 October 2026
6. Cairo Food Week Brings the World’s Most Acclaimed Chefs to the CapitalScene Eats, 17 September 2025
7. Cairo Food Week Returns for Its Fourth EditionExcel Travel Egypt, 2026

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