Palm Hills Took Cairo Around the World With Three Chef Takeovers

Ever in the business of curating how Cairo lives, proud address maker and Cairo Food Week’s West District Partner Palm Hills handed over the keys to three of its Palm Central restaurants, setting the stage for a run of chef takeovers that had Cairo’s food crowd flocking to 6th of October. Across Mamina’s, Izakaya and Scalini, award-winning global chefs gave the city’s aficionados, a few old friends, and a few fresh faces a taste of what happens when some seriously far-flung cooking lands on their doorstep.

At Izakaya, Gabriela Chamorro brought the Central American cooking of Dubai-famous Girl & the Goose to a room already built around the meeting of cultures. At Mamina’s, Copenhagen’s Bo Bech refused to arrive with a pre-written idea of Cairo, instead building his menu around what he heard people around him actually wanted to eat. And at Scalini, Sri Lankan chef Larry Jayasekara brought The Cocochine’s Mayfair sensibility into conversation with Egyptian produce, his hometown’s flavours and a kitchen that quickly became a second home.

Put those three dinners together and a bigger picture starts to emerge: Palm Hills is making room for the kind of nights Cairo usually has to travel for. Across its coastal and city communities, the Egyptian developer has been giving its addresses their own social lives, packing them with dining spots, global hotels and some of the city’s hottest events. Palm Central is one expression of that: a West Cairo postcode where dinner reservations, cultural happenings and nights worth dressing up for all sit within a few steps of each other. Cairo Food Week simply turned the volume up, bringing some very big names to an already busy table.

Copenhagen’s Bo Bech Let Cairo Decide What He Cooked at Mamina’s

The chef behind Copenhagen’s Michelin-starred Paustian and the famously unconventional Geist, Bo Bech arrived in Cairo with a deliberately empty suitcase, at least where the menu was concerned. Rather than bringing a collection of ingredients from home or arriving with a rigid idea of what he wanted Cairo to taste like, he asked the people around him what they loved to eat and started building from there.

The result was gloriously unpredictable: caramelised bread met fennel pollen ice cream under a blowtorch, raw shrimp came sharpened with citrus and hibiscus, tender greens found their way around barameli cheese, and short rib was lacquered with cucumber juice. There was even a savoury roz bel laban and a creamy pistachio number scattered with fresh herbs.Guests drifted between the dining room and the open kitchen to watch the dishes take shape, while Bech moved between the pass and the tables, talking, tasting and tweaking. This was not a chef arriving in Cairo to demonstrate what he already knew. It was someone clearly still curious about what the city could teach him, already talking about getting to the market, meeting producers and learning more about the food around him.

Nicaraguan Chef Gabriela Chamorro Hosted a Globe-Trotting Supper at Izakaya

The chef behind Dubai’s Girl & the Goose, Gabriela Chamorro grew up on the food of Nicaragua before spending 13 years flying with Emirates and eating her way through more than 80 countries. Girl & the Goose began alongside that life as a supper club in her Dubai apartment, where complete strangers came to eat her food and eventually became friends. At Izakaya, she brought that same globe-trotting curiosity to a menu that jumped happily between borders.

First came the crispy corn chalupas with ponzu tuna, black garlic aioli and guajillo, followed by smoked passion scallops dressed with passion fruit. Cured sea bass arrived with leche de tigre and sweet potato, while hamachi aguachile got an Egyptian turn with cucumber, molokhia, black olive and orange zest. Then came octopus under ají panca and dark miso, Australian tenderloin with Mesoamerican pinol and crispy shallots, and finally Caribbean coconut flan with cacao nibs, yuzu pearls and miso ice cream.

Chamorro spent much of the evening out in the room rather than tucked away in the kitchen, stopping by tables to meet guests, chat, pose for photos and check in on how everyone was eating. VIP tables started bleeding into one another, with conversations stretching beyond the people who had arrived together. It was a pretty perfect reflection of how Girl & the Goose began: Chamorro putting people around a table first then letting the food give them something to talk about.

Larry Jayasekara Brought The Cocochine’s Mayfair Kitchen & His Own Sri Lankan Roots to Scalini

Larry Jayasekara grew up in Sri Lanka before making his way into the kitchens of some of Europe’s most celebrated chefs, eventually becoming head chef at Pétrus and winning National Chef of the Year in 2016. Today, he runs The Cocochine, his intimate Mayfair restaurant where his Sri Lankan roots meet refined modern cooking and exceptional British produce. At Scalini, he brought all of that with him, with Cairo’s own ingredients getting their turn on the plate.

The menu started with explosive coronation prawns, followed by his take on a Cairo salad and Ceylon crab curry before local hamour arrived swimming in kiri hodi. Then came dry-aged Sika deer from The Cocochine’s own farm, before chocolate caviar made an appearance at the end of the meal, with Jayasekara himself coming out to finish it.

As present in the room as he was in the kitchen, Jayasekara invited guests in to meet him before heading back out to chat, take photos and check in on the tables. Scalini’s Head Chef Mohamed Alaa, who contributed truffle chicken ballotine and caramelised onion panna cotta, quickly became his partner in crime for the evening, while the EgyBev wine ambassador made his way around the room with the pairings.