Between Two Banks: A Multisensory Nile Journey at the King’s Feast

At this year’s Cairo Food Week, the third edition of the King’s Feast is curated by Alchemy Experience, which transforms the gathering into a multisensory dining experience. As the official opening of the week, the King’s Feast brings together Egypt’s cultural cognoscenti and a global roster of chefs, creating a stage where local and international culinary talent meet design, ritual, and storytelling. “Our purpose is to shine the brightest light on our country and the region's rich resources, flavors, and narratives,” says Hoda El Sherif, founder of Cairo Food Week. “The King’s Feast is one of those impactful stories that celebrates our cultures and histories.”

Cairo Food Week itself has become one of the city’s most anticipated annual events, blending gastronomy with art, , and performance. Since its inception, Alchemy has been a core creative partner, shaping all three editions of the King’s Feast in dialogue with chefs, artists, and collaborators from different disciplines. This long-standing collaboration underscores how the design of the feast does not exist in isolation, but rather as part of an evolving conversation that connects food, culture, and experience.
Rather than treating the table as a static centrepiece, the vision is to approach it as a narrative landscape, mapping the Nile’s symbolic role in Egyptian history. The choice of the Nile also aligns with Jirian Palm Hills, the main sponsor of this year’s gathering, whose flagship residential project is conceptually rooted in the river’s life-giving presence.
“For me, it is about designing beyond taste,” Karim Mekhtigian, cofounder of Alchemy tells SceneHome. “I want to activate scent, touch, sight—even sound. So the feast becomes a memory, not just a meal.”
This year’s theme, ‘Between Two Banks’, takes the Nile as both lifeline and mythological backbone. The river’s path is believed to mirror the sun god Ra’s journey across the sky, rising in the east as a symbol of life and new beginnings, setting in the west to mark death and the afterlife. Burial sites on the west bank reinforce this geography of symbolism. “The Nile was more than a river, it was a source of civilization, connection, creation and community,” notes Emy Hussein, partner at Alchemy. “And like the Nile, the table is a place where life gathers with rich stories.”
The installation mirrors this narrative with precision. Guests enter through First Breath, a dimly lit, 4D sensory experience evoking the Nile’s origins. Stones of alabaster, limestone, and other river-sourced materials are subtly infused with local botanicals; citrus, mint, bergamot, rosewater, fusing memory, taste, and scent into one layered impression. “Fragrance is always seen as divine,” Mekhtigian explains, “a bridge between the earthly and the eternal.”
From there, the feast unfolds in spatial chapters. The River Garden reimagines the fertile banks as places of gathering, where lush plantations form a sensory landscape. A bar overlooking the scene offers themed cocktails, reinforcing the ritual of community. The evening culminates in 'Where the Harvest Flows', a theatrical offering that recalls ancient Egypt’s tradition of food as both abundance in life and provision in death.

Underlying all of this is an attention to the rituals of hosting. “It is important for us to think about how people gather,” Mekhtigian says. “The table is never static, it is an evolving stage where design, conversation, and memory all come together.” That philosophy crystallises in the signature long table that he is transforming into a flowing Nile at its centre. The east side symbolises life, fertility, and growth, while the west evokes remembrance and transcendence. Dishes are conceived to reflect each bank’s symbolism. Natural elements trace the table’s surface, while a digital screen projects celestial visuals overhead, creating a full 360° journey from earth to sky. 
This sense of evolution echoes in the choice of tableware, which includes pieces from AbraCadabra, a brand blending traditional art forms with experimental techniques. Their designs reinterpret nature, offering objects that feel both rooted and daring. Alchemy also worked closely with Enlighten, who crafted the atmospheric lighting, and Flower Bar, whose botanical installations deepened the sensory immersion. These collaborators—alongside the chefs and performers—collectively shape the King’s Feast into a layered encounter. As cofounder Mohamed Fares puts it, “This is what happens when collaboration becomes a shared language — when different visions and disciplines move as one hand, one rhythm, one force.”
Overall it is a layered tableau where nothing feels ornamental for its own sake. Each detail is in service of the ethos that “design is about creating encounters,” centring how people sense and connect with what’s around them. In this curation, the table is a medium for conversation between the tangible and the intangible, reminding visitors that design, at its most refined, has the power to choreograph the everyday.